Brendan John Godley

University of Exeter | UoE · Centre for Ecology and Conservation

Changes in abundance and distribution of marine top predators can indicate environmental change or anthropogenic pressure requiring management response. Here, we used an extensive dataset (21 years) to conduct a spatial and temporal analysis of grey seal strandings in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, close to the southern edge of the breeding rang...

Global catch rates of sharks and rays from artisanal fisheries are underre-ported, leading to a lack of data on population status. This forms a major barrier to developing effective management plans, such is the case in Central and West Africa. Over 3 years, we undertook the first systematic quantitative assessment of sharks and rays landed by an a...

Assessing abundance and monitoring ecology and population trends are of critical importance for animal species of conservation concern. For sea turtles, annual nest counts represent the most common method of estimating population size. However, to develop a better understanding of population trends, these data need to be complemented by other repro...

Citizen science is now commonly employed to collect data on plastic pollution and is recognised as a valuable tool for furthering our understanding of the issue. Few studies, however, use citizen science to gather information on water-borne plastic debris. Here, citizen scientists adopted a globally standardised methodology to sample the sea-surfac...

"Protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity" is the second official aim of the current UN Ocean Decade (2021 to 2030) calling for the identification and protection of critical marine habitats. However, data to inform policy are often lacking altogether or confined to recent times, preventing the establishment of long-term baselines. The unique...

The Amazon River dolphin Inia geoffrensis occurs throughout the basins of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers and is categorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Using satellite tracking data from eight dolphins (one female and seven males) in the Peruvian Amazon, we demonstrate that these dolphins inhabit a variety of habitat types and have core area...

Bioko Island (Equatorial Guinea) hosts important nesting habitat for leatherback sea turtles, with the main nesting beaches found on the island's southern end. Nest monitoring and protection have been ongoing for more than two decades, although distribution and habitat range at sea remains to be determined. This study uses satellite telemetry to de...

The loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta), has the widest distribution among sea turtle species in the Mediterranean, requiring regional and international collaborations in addition to local efforts to better inform conservation actions. Molecular techniques are powerful tools for the assessment of population dynamics at large scales, especially...

Please cite this article as: L.C.M. Omeyer, E.M. Duncan, N.A.S. Abreo, et al., Interactions between marine megafauna and plastic pollution in Southeast Asia, Science of the Total Environment (2023), https://doi.

Southeast (SE) Asia is a highly biodiverse region, yet it is also estimated to cumulatively contribute a third of the total global marine plastic pollution. This threat is known to have adverse impacts on marine megafauna, however, understanding of its impacts has recently been highlighted as a priority for research in the region. To address this k...

There is a remarkable paucity of estimates of the numeric importance of sea turtles at foraging grounds. The Banc d'Arguin (BA) is a vast shallow marine area off the coast of Mauritania, known as a site of world importance for coastal migratory birds and other biodiversity, including extensive seagrass beds. We sampled foraging green turtles on the...

Sea turtles are considered as bio-indicators for monitoring the efficiency of restoration measures to reduce marine litter impacts on health. However, the lack of extended and standardised empirical data has prevented the accurate analysis of the factors influencing litter ingestion and the relationships with individual health. Historic data collec...

Elasmobranchs (sharks, rays, and skates) are caught throughout fisheries globally, leading to over one-third of species being threatened with extinction¹. Oceanic shark populations have undergone an average 71% decline over the last half century, owing to an 18-fold increase in relative fishing pressure². Incidental capture or ‘bycatch’ is a primar...

To assign conservation status to a population, its size, trends, and distribution must be estimated. The Mediterranean green turtle population has shown signs of recovering over the past decade, likely in response to nest protection, but satellite tracking suggests adult foraging remains largely restricted to only a few key sites in the eastern Med...

River cetaceans are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic impacts due to their constrained ranges in freshwater systems of China, South Asia, and South America. We undertook an exhaustive review of 280 peer-reviewed papers and grey literature reports (1998−2020) to examine the current status of knowledge regarding these cetaceans and their conse...

Loggerhead turtles are a globally vulnerable species of marine turtle. Broad-scale patterns of distribution and abundance can provide regional managers a tool to effectively conserve and manage this species at basin and sub-basin scales. In this study, combined aerial and shipboard line transect survey data collected between 2003 and 2018 were used...

Human exploitation of wildlife for food, medicine, curios, aphrodisiacs, and spiritual artifacts represents a mounting 21st-century conservation challenge. Here, we provide the first global assessment of illegal marine turtle exploitation across multiple spatial scales (i.e., Regional Management Units [RMUs] and countries) by collating data from pe...

This paper describes, for the first time, that scallops can be attracted into static fishing gear using LED lights. This novel finding presents an opportunity for the development of a new, low impact fishing method for scallops. Traditionally, wild caught scallops are primarily fished using dredges and trawls. Due to their penetrative nature, the i...

Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) are often undervalued and unmanaged as a result of a lack of data. A study of SSFs in Menabe, western Madagascar in 1991 found diverse catches and a productive fishery with some evidence of declining catches. Here we compare data collected at the same landing site in 1991 and 2011. 2011 had seven times greater total mon...

The biodiversity of marine and coastal habitats is experiencing unprecedented change. While there are well-known drivers of these changes, such as overexploitation, climate change and pollution, there are also relatively unknown emerging issues that are poorly understood or recognized that have potentially positive or negative impacts on marine and...

Marine protected areas (MPAs), particularly large MPAs, are increasing in number and size around the globe in part to facilitate the conservation of marine megafauna under the assumption that large-scale MPAs better align with vagile life histories; however, this alignment is not well established. Using a global tracking dataset from 36 species acr...

The northwestern Indian Ocean hosts globally crucial marine biodiversity, which is relatively understudied. There has, however, been significant research and conservation effort focused on marine turtles across the region in recent decades. We undertook an exhaustive review of 251 relevant publications to extract and collate the current information...

Monitoring how populations respond to sustained conservation measures is essential to detect changes in their population status and determine the effectiveness of any interventions. In the case of sea turtles, their populations are difficult to assess because of their complicated life histories. Ground-derived clutch counts are most often used as a...

Southeast Asia is considered to have some of the highest levels of marine plastic pollution in the world. It is therefore vitally important to increase our understanding of the impacts and risks of plastic pollution to marine ecosystems and the essential services they provide to support the development of mitigation measures in the region. An inter...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242459.].

The northwestern Indian Ocean hosts globally crucial marine biodiversity, which is relatively understudied. There has, however, been significant research and conservation effort focused on marine turtles across the region in recent decades. We undertook an exhaustive review of 251 relevant publications to extract and collate the current information...

The loggerhead sea turtle ( Caretta caretta ), has the broadest distribution among sea turtle species in the Mediterranean and requires regional and international collaborations in addition to local efforts to better inform conservation actions. Molecular techniques are powerful tools to assess population dynamics at large scales, especially by det...

The loggerhead sea turtle ( Caretta caretta ), has the broadest distribution among sea turtle species in the Mediterranean and requires regional and international collaborations in addition to local efforts to better inform conservation actions. Molecular techniques are powerful tools to assess population dynamics at large scales, especially by det...

Although published literature regarding the 5 species of marine turtle found along the continental African east coast has grown substantially over the last decades, a comprehensive synthesis of their status and ecology is lacking. Using a mixed methods approach, which com- bined an exhaustive literature review and expert elicitation, we assessed th...

Due to changing environmental conditions, many species will have to migrate or occupy new suitable areas to avoid potential extinction in the current biodiversity crisis. Long-lived animals are especially vulnerable and ex-situ conservation actions can provide solutions through assisted colonisations. However, there is little empirical evidence on...

Networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) are invaluable for the protection of species with high dispersal capacity, yet connectivity within networks is poorly understood. We demonstrate the connectivity within the regional MPA network in West Africa (RAMPAO), mediated by the largest green turtle population in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. We equippe...

Over the past 4 decades there has been a growing concern for the conservation status of elasmobranchs (sharks and rays). In 2002, the first elasmobranch species were added to Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Less than 20 yr later, there were 39 species on Appendix II and 5 o...

Aim Understanding the spatial ecology of animal movements is a critical element in conserving long‐lived, highly mobile marine species. Analyzing networks developed from movements of six sea turtle species reveals marine connectivity and can help prioritize conservation efforts. Location Global. Methods We collated telemetry data from 1235 indivi...

Globally, the number of citizen science clean-up projects, such as beach cleans, is increasing in an effort to reduce the amount of plastic pollution in the environment. Such activities offer the opportunity to gather insightful data on plastic abundance, distribution and composition. This information is key for informing effective management strat...

As part of the Post‐2020 Biodiversity Framework, nations are assessing progress over the past decade in addressing the underlying drivers that influence direct pressures on biodiversity and formulating new policies and strategies for the decade to come. For marine conservation, global marine protected area (MPA) coverage is still falling short of t...

Although published literature regarding the 5 species of marine turtle found along the continental African east coast has grown substantially over the last decades, a comprehensive synthesis of their status and ecology is lacking. Using a mixed methods approach, which combined an exhaustive literature review and expert elicitation, we assessed the...

Agroforest mosaics represent one of the most extensive human-impacted terrestrial systems worldwide and play an increasingly critical role in wildlife conservation. In such dynamic shared landscapes, coexistence can be compromised if people view wildlife as a source of infectious disease. A cross-disciplinary One Health knowledge base can help to i...

Plastic pollution and climate change have commonly been treated as two separate issues and sometimes are even seen as competing. Here we present an alternative view that these two issues are fundamentally linked. Primarily, we explore how plastic contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the beginning to the end of its life cycle. Secondly...

The ingestion of plastic by marine turtles is now reported for all species. Small juvenile turtles (including post-hatchling and oceanic juveniles) are thought to be most at risk, due to feeding preferences and overlap with areas of high plastic abundance. Their remote and dispersed life stage, however, results in limited access and assessments. He...

Significance Elucidating the mechanisms that regulate animal populations is a fundamental goal in ecology and is increasingly important at a time of unprecedented anthropogenic disturbance to ecosystems. Here, we present direct evidence of a phenomenon known as “Ashmole’s halo”: a zone of prey depletion that is hypothesized to form around aggregati...

The Endangered Mediterranean monk seal Monachus monachus is one of the most threatened marine mammals. Across Cyprus, suitable habitat and presence of monk seals is well documented and, recently, camera-trap surveys in Southern Cyprus found there to be pupping. We present results of the first camera-trap surveys in Northern Cyprus spanning the pupp...

Monitoring animals with electronic tags is an increasingly important tool for fundamental and applied ecological research. Based on the size of the system under study, the ability to recapture the animal, and research medium (e.g., aerial, freshwater, saltwater, terrestrial), tags selected may either log data in memory (bio-logging), transmit it to...

Dietary studies provide key insights into threats and changes within ecosystems and subsequent impacts on focal species. Diet is particularly challenging to study within marine environments and therefore is often poorly understood. Here, we examined the diet of stranded and bycaught loggerhead ( Caretta caretta ) and green turtles ( Chelonia mydas...

The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats during the early lockdown months of 2020, based on 877 qualitative reports and 332 quantitative assessments from 89 different studies. Hundr...

Background Plastic pollution affects all ecosystems, and detrimental effects to animals have been reported in a growing number of studies. However, there is a paucity of evidence for effects on terrestrial animals in comparison to those in the marine realm. Methods We used the fly Drosophila melanogaster to study the effects that exposure to plast...

Given differing trajectories of sea turtle populations worldwide, there is a need to assess and report long-term population trends and determine which conservation strategies are effective. In this study, we report on sea turtle nest monitoring in the Cayman Islands over a 22-year period. We found that green (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead (Caretta...

Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands and their unique biodiversity are a global conservation priority. We explored the presence, composition and environmental drivers of plastic contamination across the marine ecosystem at an island scale, investigated uptake in marine invertebrates and designed a systematic priority scoring analysis to identify the most vu...

Estimating life‐history traits and understanding their variation underpins the management of long‐lived, migratory animals, while knowledge of recovery dynamics can inform the management of conservation‐dependent species. Using a combination of nest counts and individual‐based life‐history data collected since 1993, we explore the drivers underlyin...

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unparalleled global impacts on human mobility. In the ocean, ship-based activities are thought to have been impacted due to severe restrictions on human movements and changes in consumption. Here, we quantify and map global change in marine traffic during the first half of 2020. There were decreases in 70.2% of...

Climate change is a threat to marine turtles that is expected to affect all their life stages. To guide future research, we conducted a review of the most recent literature on this topic, highlighting knowledge gains and research gaps since a similar previous review in 2009. We suggest a number of research priorities for an improved understanding o...

The eastern Mediterranean is a region that has been relatively understudied with regards to anthropogenic marine litter despite potential for environmental and social costs. Here, coastal marine litter accumulation was assessed at eight beach locations along the coast of Northern Cyprus. Monthly surveys were performed between January 2017 and Janua...

Marine mammals can play important ecological roles in aquatic ecosystems, and their presence can be key to community structure and function. Consequently, marine mammals are often considered indicators of ecosystem health and flagship species. Yet, historical population declines caused by exploitation, and additional current threats, such as climat...

Microplastic is a ubiquitous environmental contaminant, but large gaps still exist in our knowledge of its distribution. We conducted a detailed assessment of the extent and variability of microplastic pollution in the Bristol Channel, UK. Sand samples were collected between the 5th and 30th August 2017, with microplastic recovered from 15 of the 1...

Understanding empowerment is integral to facilitating sustainable use policies and requires assessing potential drivers. However, critical applications are rare in conservation. Using the island of Príncipe (São Tomé and Príncipe) as a case study, we undertook household surveys (N = 869) to assess potential drivers of psychological empowerment towa...

Illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing poses a major threat to effective management of marine resources, affecting biodiversity and communities dependent on these coastal resources. Spatiotemporal patterns of industrial fisheries in developing countries are often poorly understood, and global efforts to describe spatial patterns of fish...