Richard Phillips

Research Area

My research interests in seabirds are very broad, encompassing their conservation, fisheries interactions, impacts of introduced predators, distributions, habitat preferences, foraging ecology, roles in marine food webs, stable isotopes, pollutants, population dynamics, population genetic structure, hormones and behaviour, comparative breeding biology and population trends.

My main field sites are Bird Island (South Georgia), Signy Island (South Orkneys) and Rothera (Adelaide Island), but I have many collaborators who work on other islands in the Southern Ocean who could provide data for comparative studies. I have access to extensive tracking and demographic databases from albatrosses, petrels and skuas. I have also been involved in dedicated studies, integrating conventional observational techniques with the latest in tracking and logging technology, molecular and stable isotope analysis. I am interested in blue skies research and in studies that address threats to seabirds, particularly from incidental mortality (bycatch) in fisheries.

Project Interests

For this round of DLAs, I am particularly interested in developing projects on the effects of intrinsic factors (sex, age, breeding status, adult quality, individual specialisation) and extrinsic factors (environmental variation) on foraging distributions and habitat use of seabirds. These studies would analyse tracking data to address fundamental questions about the links between intra- and inter-specific competition, and availability of habitat, and the spatial segregation and niche partitioning in seabird communities across the Southern Ocean.