Chris Wilcox

Chris Wilcox
Wilco Analytics

Doctor of Philosophy

About

205
Publications
146,260
Reads
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26,906
Citations
Introduction
I am a quantitative ecologist interested in understanding and managing human impacts on natural systems. My research has ranged from metapopulation and community dynamics in wetlands to economics and behavior of fishers to tagging and tracking of large marine vertebrates. I develop and use a wide range of quantitative tools for simulation, estimation, and decision support.
Additional affiliations
March 2005 - present
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
Position
  • Senior Researcher
March 2005 - present
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
Position
  • Senior Researcher
March 2005 - present
University of Tasmania
Position
  • Professor (Associate)

Publications

Publications (205)
Article
Full-text available
By March 2020 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was anticipated to present a major challenge to the work undertaken by scientists. This pandemic could be considered just one of the shocks that human society has had and will be likely to confront again in the future. As strategic thinking about the future can assist performance and planning of sci...
Preprint
Full-text available
Improving detectability (i.e., enforcers’ capacity to detect illegal fishing activities) is crucial for fisheries management, food security and livelihoods. Identifying factors associated with higher probabilities of illegal activities and their detection across supply chains are necessary for effective interventions. Here, we developed a Bayesian...
Article
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Global wild-capture fisheries are a large and diverse sector requiring various tools for fisheries-dependant data collection and effective Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS). Here we present a novel protocol to collect eDNA from brine tanks onboard commercial longline vessels to reconstruct catch composition. We collected samples from nine...
Article
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To ensure sustainable fisheries, many complex on-vessel activities are periodically monitored to provide data to assist the assessment of stock status and ensure fishery regulations are being met. Such monitoring is often performed manually which is an exhaustive and expensive process. Consequently, several forms of Electronic Monitoring (EM) have...
Article
Pinnipeds represent one of the most vulnerable marine groups severely affected by entanglements. However, the lack of standardized data collection poses a challenge when comparing the impacts of fishing gear across various geographic regions. In this study, we employed Generalized Additive Models to predict entanglement incidents stemming from fish...
Preprint
The exponential increase in plastic production coupled with variable global waste management system efficiencies has resulted in large amounts of plastic waste entering the ocean every year. Although we know millions of tonnes of plastic have entered the oceans, we do not yet understand the patterns of its accumulation across space nor the drivers...
Article
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Plastic debris is a significant problem aesthetically, environmentally, and across food chains. Hence it is important to increase understanding of the mechanisms of how this debris is distributed and potentially managed, especially in areas such as Africa with relatively large populations and poor infrastructure. Debris can be derived from local so...
Article
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Context The growing demand for global food security has resulted in rising fishing intensity, sometimes leading to overexploitation of fish resources, including tuna. Increasingly, fishers are using anchored fish aggregating devices (aFADs) to improve efficiencies and reduce costs. Aims To identify locations and use patterns of FADs and characteri...
Article
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As global awareness, science, and policy interventions for plastic escalate, institutions around the world are seeking preventative strategies. Central to this is the need for precise global time series of plastic pollution with which we can assess whether implemented policies are effective, but at present we lack these data. To address this need,...
Article
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Aim Biodiversity hotspots in wide‐ranging marine species typically overlap with regions of high productivity, which are often associated with nutrient‐rich waters. Here we investigate how element concentrations in feathers vary among highly mobile seabirds in global seabird biodiversity hotspots. Location Southern Hemisphere. Time period Contempo...
Article
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Recycling by the informal sector provides a rapid, inexpensive solution to plastic pollution, whilst supporting the livelihoods via their inclusion and empowerment. This solution will have the greatest benefit to the environment if supporting interventions are targeted at types of plastic pollution that are the most damaging from an ecological and...
Article
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Abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) is a major contributor to ocean pollution, with extensive social, economic, and environmental impacts. However, quantitative ALDFG estimates are dated and limited in scope. To provide current global estimates, we interviewed fishers around the world about how much fishing gear they lose a...
Article
This study investigates the risk plastic debris ingestion poses to coastal marine taxa in the Balearic Islands in the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, we use species observations and environmental data to model habitat maps for 42 species of fish. For each species, we then match estimates of habitat suitability against the spatial distribution of p...
Article
Regardless of where plastic pollution originates, the management interventions made at the local level are crucial to the global success of reducing plastic pollution. Reduced plastic consumption and pollution have been observed in communities with plastic taxes and educational programs. However, there is currently a lack of a quantitative framewor...
Article
While efforts to reduce illegal fishing have been underway for some time, market data suggest the volume of illegal fish in the markets is not decreasing significantly. One issue that may be driving this is the difficulty in imposing meaningful sanctions. We discuss an alternative approach aimed at reducing illegal fishing. A State's open register...
Article
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Plastic pollution is a critical environmental concern. There is a growing focus on this transboundary issue, and a corresponding increase in public and government awareness. Understanding the key factors associated with litter and mismanaged waste on land will help to predict where and how waste enters the environment, providing opportunities for l...
Article
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One of the key international efforts to reduce Illegal, Unreported,and Unregulated (IUU) fishing is the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's Port State Measures Agreement. The agreement is designed to close off the opportunities for non-compliance, such as vessels engaging in illegal practices to land their catch. However, with thousa...
Article
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Ocean governance is complex and influenced by multiple drivers and actors with different worldviews and goals. While governance encompasses many elements, in this paper we focus on the processes that operate within and between states, civil society and local communities, and the market, including industry. Specifically, in this paper, we address th...
Article
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In the age of the Anthropocene, the ocean has typically been viewed as a sink for pollution. Pollution is varied, ranging from human-made plastics and pharmaceutical compounds, to human-altered abiotic factors, such as sediment and nutrient runoff. As global population, wealth and resource consumption continue to grow, so too does the amount of pot...
Article
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Quantifying accurately human impacts on marine ecosystems is key to healthy oceans. While fish production from wild stocks has plateaued since the 1980 s, those estimates are primarily drawn from large-scale commercial fisheries, whose boats are routinely monitored using a suite of sophisticated equipment to ensure compliance. Smaller vessels, howe...
Article
The remote Gulf of Carpentaria (GoC) represents 10% of Australia's coastline. This large, shallow sea supports high-value fishing activities and habitat for threatened species, and is a sink for abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) ‘ghost nets’, most originating from fishing activities outside of Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone. W...
Article
Anthropogenic debris (AD) including plastics, foams and fishing debris, are an undesirable accompaniment to beaches worldwide, arriving through direct deposition (littering) and oceanic transport. We investigated the standing stocks of 12 types of AD on inhabited islands, uninhabited islands and mainland locations, and the potential factors relatin...
Article
Managing marine systems is challenging, as many marine species are highly mobile. Albatross exemplify this paradigm, overlapping multiple threats at sea, including bycatch. The typical characterization of bycatch, the number of individuals, ignores the long-term, population-wide repercussions of bycatch. Including an estimate of the reproductive va...
Article
Full-text available
Monitoring the use of anchored fish aggregating devices (AFADs) is essential for effective fisheries management. However, detecting the use of these devices is a significant challenge for fisheries management in Indonesia. These devices are continually deployed at large scales, due to large numbers of users and high failure rates, increasing the di...
Article
Pollution of coastal environments by anthropogenic debris is a global problem that is increasingly in the public eye. We evaluated the influence of socioeconomic and geographic factors on common debris items at a global scale. We compared debris density and socioeconomic drivers of the ten most common items reported on land and the seafloor, analyz...
Article
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Protein from fish is essential for feeding the world’s population and is increasingly recognized as critical for food security. To ensure that fisheries resources can be sustainably maintained, fisheries management must be appropriately implemented. When logbook and landing records data are not complete or are incorrect, it is challenging to have a...
Article
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Abandoned, Lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) comprises a significant part of global marine plastic pollution, with adverse consequences for fishers, the seafood industry, and marine wildlife and habitats. To effectively prevent and reduce ALDFG at source, an understanding of the major causes of and drivers behind fishing gear losses...
Article
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Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) represents a major sea-based source of marine debris globally, with far-reaching socioeconomic and environmental impacts. Estimates of the amount of ALDFG entering the ocean have implications for managers and policy makers as they work to tailor solutions at scale. While scientists have wo...
Article
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Illegal fishing via roving banditry, or fishing illegally in other countries’ territorial waters, continues to threaten the security, sustainability, and biodiversity of global marine resources. Yet, little is known about the behavioral drivers of banditry, and whether interventions can shift these. We address this critical knowledge gap by quantit...
Article
Environmental harm from plastic pollution partly results from compliance failure at the individual level. Three prevalent non-compliant motivations for polluting plastics include economic gains, ignorance of the rules and unlikely penalization from inadequately enforced rules. Given compliance is primarily the responsibility of local waste manageme...
Article
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There have been a variety of attempts to model and quantify the amount of land-based waste entering the world’s oceans, most of which rely heavily on global estimates of population density as the key driving factor. Using empirical data collected in seven different countries/territories (China, Kenya, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan an...
Article
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Globally, seabird populations have been in decline due to multiple threats throughout their range. Separating simultaneous pressures is challenging and can require significant amounts of data over long periods of time. We use spatial contrasts to investigate the relative importance of several drivers for the purported decline in a species listed as...
Article
Entanglement of pinnipeds with plastic debris is an emerging conservation and animal welfare issue worldwide. However, the origins and long-term population level consequences of these entanglements are usually unknown. Plastic entanglement could produce a combination of wounds, asphyxiation, or inability to feed that results in the death of a certa...
Article
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Non-compliers typically avoid detection by authorities, benefiting from increased catch and income. While detection-avoidance strategies (e.g., secret compartments to hide illegal catch) are commonly used in the nature conservation context, they remain largely unstudied. We address this knowledge gap in three sections. First, we introduce and hypot...
Article
Illegal fishing is a widespread, global phenomenon that is affecting already heavily depleted wild fish stocks, threatening marine habitats and contributing to marine pollution through discarded fishing gear. Many different measures have been implemented by nation states to deter and prevent illegal fishing. These include coastal surveillance and p...
Article
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In their recent paper, Lavers et al. 2019 measured blood chemistry parameters in fledgling seabirds, finding a link between ingested plastic and growth, calcium, uric acid, and cholesterol. The manuscript suggests varied toxicological interpretations and concluded that superficially healthy animals may still experience negative health consequences...
Article
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Pollution by plastic and other debris is a problem affecting the world's oceans and is increasing through time. The problem is so large that prioritizing solutions to effect meaningful change may seem overwhelming to the public and policy makers. Marine megafauna are known to mistakenly eat anthropogenic debris and die from consequent gastrointesti...
Article
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Marine debris is a growing threat to hundreds of marine animal species. To understand the consequences of marine debris to wildlife populations, studies must go beyond reporting the incidence of wildlife and debris interactions and aim to quantify the harm resulting from these interactions. Tubenosed seabirds are globally threatened, with near univ...
Article
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Naturally occurring metals and metalloids [metal(loid)s] are essential for the physiological functioning of wildlife; however, environmental contamination by metal(loid) and plastic pollutants is a health hazard. Metal(loid)s may interact with plastic in the environment and there is mixed evidence about whether plastic ingested by wildlife affects...
Article
Full-text available
Illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing is a major contributor to global overfishing, threatening food security, maritime livelihoods, and fisheries sustainability. An emerging narrative in the literature posits that IUU fishing is associated with additional organized criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, slav...
Article
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Interest in understanding the extent of plastic and specifically microplastic pollution has increased on a global scale. However, we still know relatively little about how much plastic pollution has found its way into the deeper areas of the world’s oceans. The extent of microplastic pollution in deep-sea sediments remains poorly quantified, but th...
Article
Understanding the impact of plastic debris on marine birds is important for conservation of some species, and assessing risk from this anthropogenic threat requires high-quality distribution data for both marine birds and plastic debris. We applied a risk assessment framework to explore the relative risk for 19 marine bird species posed by plastic...
Article
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While illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a premier issue facing ocean sustainability, characterizing it is challenging due to its clandestine nature. Current approaches can be resource intensive and sometimes controversial. Using Chile as an example, we present a structured process leveraging existing capacity, fisheries officers...
Article
Full-text available
Marine debris represents a major threat for the environment. Plastic production is increasing exponentially and causing an unprecedented growth of plastic pollution entering the marine environment. Hence, a thorough assessment of debris accumulation areas is required to address the longstanding question about where is all the missing plastic. Most...
Article
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Pollution of coastal and marine environments by mismanaged anthropogenic debris is a global threat requiring complex, multilateral solutions and mitigation strategies. International efforts to catalogue and quantify the density, extent and nature of mismanaged waste have not yet assessed the heterogeneity of debris between nearby areas. Better unde...
Article
Since the start of commercial plastics production in the 1940s, global production has rapidly accelerated, doubling approximately every 11 years. Despite this increase and clear evidence of plastics loss into the oceans, including a substantial standing stock, previous research has not detected a temporal trend in plastic particle concentration in...
Article
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Bottled water is one sector of the beverage industry that has recently experienced substantial growth. The littering of plastic water bottles and the carbon emissions produced from bottled water production results in harmful effects on the environment. To reduce the harm of bottled water production and litter, government and non-government organisa...
Article
Full-text available
Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) represents a significant, yet ultimately unknown amount of global marine debris, with serious environmental and socioeconomic impacts. This study reviews 68 publications from 1975 to 2017 that contain quantitative information about fishing gear losses. Gear loss estimates reported by the s...
Article
Full-text available
Plastics and other artificial materials pose new risks to health of the ocean. Anthropogenic debris travels across large distances and is ubiquitous in the water and on the shorelines, yet, observations of its sources, composition, pathways and distributions in the ocean are very sparse and inaccurate. Total amounts of plastics and other man-made...
Article
Full-text available
Plastics and other artificial materials pose new risks to health of the ocean. Anthropogenic debris travels across large distances and is ubiquitous in the water and on the shorelines, yet, observations of its sources, composition, pathways and distributions in the ocean are very sparse and inaccurate. Total amounts of plastics and other man-made...
Article
Full-text available
Maximenko et al. Integrated Marine Debris Observing System Plastics and other artificial materials pose new risks to the health of the ocean. Anthropogenic debris travels across large distances and is ubiquitous in the water and on shorelines, yet, observations of its sources, composition, pathways, and distributions in the ocean are very sparse an...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
For Kerguelen black-browed albatross (Thalassarche melanophris), warmer sea-surface temperatures (SST) near the colony during incubation have historically promoted chick survival, implying that future increased temperatures would support population viability. However, a historical population decline was driven by by-catch of albatross from the ille...
Article
Plastic marine pollution is an increasing threat to global marine diversity. Quantifying this threat is particularly difficult and complex, especially when evaluating multiple species with different ecological requirements. Here, we examine the semi-enclosed basin of the Mediterranean Sea where the inputs of plastic pollution and its impact on mari...
Article
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Procellariiformes are the most threatened bird group globally, and the group with the highest frequency of marine debris ingestion. Marine debris ingestion is a globally recognized threat to marine biodiversity, yet the relationship between how much debris a bird ingests and mortality remains poorly understood. Using cause of death data from 1733 s...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This report was the product of a GESAMP Working Group, consisting of 15 independent experts based in North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Europe and Australasia. The report was edited by Kershaw, Turra and Galgani. It with provides recommendations to encourage a more harmonised approach to the monitoring and assessment of plastic litter, inc...
Article
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Procellariiform seabirds are both the most threatened bird group globally, and the group with the highest incidence of marine debris ingestion. We examined the incidence and ecological factors associated with marine debris ingestion in Procellariiformes by examining seabirds collected at a global seabird hotspot, the Australasian - Southern Ocean b...