Edward J. Gregr

University of British Columbia | UBC · Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES)

Seaweed farming is widely promoted as an approach to mitigating climate change despite limited data on carbon removal pathways and uncertainty around benefits and risks at operational scales. We explored the feasibility of climate change mitigation from seaweed farming by constructing five scenarios spanning a range of industry development in coast...

Climate change is increasing stream temperatures and thereby changing habitat suitability for a variety of freshwater fishes. We investigate how suitable stream habitat for rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), a valuable cold-water species, may change in British Columbia, Canada, currently near the north end of their range. We examine a no-mitigati...

Machine learning is a popular tool in ecology but many scientific applications suffer from data leakage, causing misleading results. We highlight common pitfalls in ecological machine-learning methods and argue that discipline-specific model info sheets must be developed to aid in model evaluations.

Seaweed farming is widely promoted as an approach to mitigating climate change despite limited data on carbon removal pathways and uncertainty around benefits and risks at operational scales. We explored the feasibility of seaweed farms to contribute to atmospheric CO2 reduction in coastal British Columbia, Canada, a region identified as highly sui...

This collaborative report aims to improve understanding of blue carbon ecosystems in Canada. The report outlines what is known about these ecosystems and highlights gaps in our understanding. It includes information on blue carbon science, legislation, policy and economics. The process used to develop this report is also noteworthy: it brought toge...

With climate, biodiversity and inequity crises squarely upon us, never has there been a more pressing time to rethink how we conceptualize, understand and manage our relationship with Earth's biodiversity. Here, we describe governance principles of 17 Indigenous Nations from the Northwest Coast of North America used to understand and steward relati...

Understanding the cumulative effects of multiple stressors is a research priority in environmental science. Ecological models are a key component of tackling this challenge because they can simulate interactions between the components of an ecosystem. Here, we ask, how has the popular modeling platform Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) been used to model h...

Understanding the cumulative effects of multiple stressors is a research priority in environmental science. Ecological models are a key component of tackling this challenge because they can simulate interactions between the components of an ecosystem. Here, we ask, how has the popular modeling platform Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) been used to model h...

As the United Nations develops a post-2020 global biodiversity framework for the Convention on Biological Diversity, attention is focusing on how new goals and targets for ecosystem conservation might serve its vision of ‘living in harmony with nature’1,2. Advancing dual imperatives to conserve biodiversity and sustain ecosystem services requires r...

Maps of bottom type are essential to the management of marine resources and biodiversity because of their foundational role in characterizing species’ habitats. They are also urgently needed as countries work to define marine protected areas. Current approaches are time consuming, focus largely on grain size, and tend to overlook shallow waters. Ou...

Aim The global decline of megafauna is believed to have had significant and widespread ecological impacts. One such extinction of likely important consequence is the 18th century extinction of the Steller’s sea cow ( Hydrodamalis gigas ); however, little has been written about how the loss of this megaherbivore may have impacted coastal ecosystem d...

ContextPlanning for multifunctional landscapes is a way to restore ecological processes that benefit human well-being (ecosystem services—ES). By accounting for the effects of the spatial arrangement of restored areas, planners can enhance the positive outcomes of restoration activities. However, while there are many models for individual ES provis...

Humanity is on a deeply unsustainable trajectory. We are exceeding planetary boundaries and unlikely to meet many international sustainable development goals and global environmental targets. Until recently, there was no broadly accepted framework of interventions that could ignite the transformations needed to achieve these desired targets and goa...

The benefits of ecosystem restoration Human activities have fundamentally altered many ecosystems. Recent successful restoration efforts have led to healthier ecosystems, but this has led to a disruption in economies dependent on the altered state of the system. One of the best-known trophic cascades is the sea otter–kelp forest system, wherein rec...

Canada is committed to maintaining biological diversity and productivity in the marine environment under the Oceans Act (Government of Canada 1997). Identifying Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) is a key component of this commitment. Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have developed gui...

Model transferability is an emerging and important branch of predictive science that has grown primarily from a need to produce ecological forecasts in the face of widespread data deficiency and escalating environmental novelty. In our recent article in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, we outlined some of the major roadblocks that currently undermi...

Model transferability is an emerging and important branch of predictive science that has grown primarily from a need to produce ecological forecasts in the face of widespread data deficiency and escalating environmental novelty. In our recent article in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, we outlined some of the major roadblocks that currently under-...

Social-ecological systems contribute to environmental change and, in turn, face its corresponding shocks and disturbances. As scholarship on resilience and social-ecological transformations grows, researchers from various disciplines continue to debate how major transitions and environmental change can be anticipated, studied or guided towards just...

Understanding how species are distributed in the environment is increasingly important for natural resource management, particularly for keystone and habitat forming species, and those of conservation concern. Habitat suitability models are fundamental to developing this understanding; however their use in management continues to be limited due to...

This report provides an overview of the methods used to collect the data contained in the British Columbia ShoreZone database. It is based on various historical protocol reports (in particular, the draft protocol prepared by Morris 2015) and communications with the data’s original creators. The report also describes the attributes contained in the...

Understanding how species are distributed in the environment is increasingly important for natural resource management, particularly for keystone and habitat forming species, and those of conservation concern. Habitat suitability models are fundamental to developing this understanding; however their use in management continues to be limited due to...

Predictive models are central to many scientific disciplines and vital for informing management in a rapidly changing world. However, limited understanding of the accuracy and precision of models transferred to novel conditions (their ‘transferability’) undermines confidence in their predictions. Here, 50 experts identified priority knowledge gaps...

Access, defined as the ability to use and benefit from available marine resources or areas of the ocean or coast, is important for the well-being and sustainability of coastal communities. In Canada, access to marine resources and ocean spaces is a significant issue for many coastal and Indigenous communities due to intensifying activity and compet...

• Low trophic‐level forage fish are experiencing global declines, influencing coupled human–ocean systems worldwide. Along the northwest coast of North America, declining trajectories of Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) have prompted interest in improving the understanding of its population and community dynamics to better guide future conservatio...

Indigenous people harvest wild species for food and cultural practice, fundamentally linking biodiversity conservation and indigenous rights. Rockfishes (Sebastes spp.) are culturally significant to indigenous people (or First Nations) of coastal British Columbia (BC), Canada, who regulate their harvest under traditional governance structures. Firs...

In 1981, Leatherback Sea Turtle populations in Canadian waters were assessed by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) as Endangered. This status was confirmed in 2001, and in 2003, the Leatherback Sea Turtle was listed as Endangered on Schedule 1 of the Species at Risk Act (SARA). In May 2012, the species was reasse...

A leading hypothesis to explain the dramatic decline of Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) in western Alaska during the latter part of the 20th century is a change in prey availability due to commercial fisheries. We tested this hypothesis by exploring the relationships between sea lion population trends, fishery catches, and the prey biomass a...

Ecological forecasts are increasingly seen as central to integrated management. However, to use such predictions, decision-makers require some understanding of how likely the forecasts are—or at least how likely one is over another. This cannot be achieved without considering model assumptions and their associated uncertainties. To illustrate, we f...

The focus of this research document is to provide an understanding of the key elements needed to develop a hierarchical marine ecological classification system to support an ecosystem approach to management for the Pacific region of Canada. Ecosystem approaches to management would contribute to management activities such as: • development of a netw...

Critical habitat is presumed to protect important feeding areas for designated species such as Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus). We sought to assess the relative abundance and distribution of three species of groundfish in Alaska that dominate the diets of Steller sea lions: walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma), Pacific cod (Gadus macrocep...

Aim The introduction of potentially invasive species remains a global threat to biodiversity and ecosystem services. The spatial distribution of introduced species can provide insight into present and historical vectors of invasion. Here, we aim to investigate the influence of environmental, demographic and vector variables on the spatial distribut...

Marine species distribution modeling has seen explosive growth in recent years, and the Endangered Species Research Theme Section entitled ‘Beyond marine mammal habitat modeling: applications for ecology and conservation’ demonstrates that the field of marine mammalogy has been no exception. For the past decade, marine mammal ecologists have been d...

Models for predicting marine mammal habitat are increasingly being developed to help answer questions about species’ ecology, conservation, and management. Over the past 10 yr, the models and analyses presented at the Habitat Modelling Workshops of the Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals have shown tremendous development in their b...

Background/Question/Methods The Roadmap to Sustainable Prosperity provides a framework within which planning, legislation, regulation, enforcement, monitoring, and adaptive management can be integrated and aligned for consistency, across jurisdictional and geographic scales. At a high level, the Roadmap can help governments and stakeholders exami...

Background/Question/Methods Scientists and managers are increasingly using models to predict future states under alternative management scenarios. However, prediction is an inherently uncertain process where the impacts of management actions must be inferred without complete information. The need to make decisions under uncertainty motivates a nu...

Charting a Course for Sustainable Prosperity ("the Chart") provides an overarching architecture within which the central elements of Ecosystem-based Management (EBM) can be placed and aligned. Usually treated as separate responsibilities, these elements are much more effective if their relationships are understood from the outset, and operationaliz...

The classification of marine habitats is a critical first step towards the protection of marine biodiversity and the sustainable management of the world’s oceans. Recently, the topic has received heightened attention as the 2012 deadline for meeting international commitments under the convention on biological diversity (CBD) approaches. These commi...

Whaling records from the mid-1800s provide the largest set of observations with which to conduct a basin-scale analysis of potential North Pacific right whale Eubalaena japonica habitat. Since these data lack the concurrent oceanographic data necessary to investigate the species' habitat characteristics I used ocean climate from a 20th century circ...

To support the development of critical habitat designations, species recovery strategies, and habitat-based stock assessments, comprehensive spatial maps of the physical and biological characteristics of the nearshore (0 – 50 m) region are required. This region – termed the ‘white strip’ by marine geologists because of the lack of physical data – i...

Ecosystem models play an important role in supporting ecosystem approaches to management. To improve the representation of how ecosystems work, ecosystem models should be able to represent mediating effects (e.g., habitat provision) that species provide to each other as well as species (re)introductions, both common situations that can strongly inf...

Whaling records from British Columbia coastal whaling stations reliably report the positions of 9592 whales killed between 1948 and 1967. We used this positional information and oceanographic data (bathymetry, temperature, and salinity) to predict critical habitat off the coast of British Columbia for sperm (Physeter macrocephalus), sei (Balaenopte...

ABSTRACT  We estimated carrying capacity for sea otters (Enhydra lutris) in the coastal waters of British Columbia, Canada, by characterizing habitat according to the complexity of nearshore intertidal and sub-tidal contours. We modeled the total area of complex habitat on the west coast of Vancouver Island by first calculating the complexity of th...

Background / Purpose: Sea otters are widely regarded as a keystone species, able to structure nearshore marine environments by releasing macro-algae from grazing pressure. This restructuring can shift an invertebrate-dominated nearshore system (urchin barrens) into a kelp-dominated system, which is assumed to support a greater biomass and diversi...

Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans Karen McLeod and Heather Leslie, Eds. Island Press, Washington, DC, 2009. 391 pp. $90. ISBN 9781597261548. Paper, $45. ISBN 9781597261555. The contributors describe and discuss the application of ecosystem-based management to coastal and ocean systems.

The eastern North Pacific population of right whales (Eubalaena japonica) is among the most endangered whale populations, with an estimated size of only 10s of individuals. The effectiveness of measures (e.g., protected areas, abundance surveys) intended to promote recovery of this population will be enhanced by understanding its distribution, habi...

We used published information about foraging behaviour, terrestrial resting sites, bathymetry and seasonal ocean climate to develop hypotheses relating life-history traits and physical variables to the at-sea habitat of a wide-ranging marine predator, the Steller sea lion Eumetopias jubatus. We used these hypotheses to develop a series of habitat m...

The move to ecosystem-based management of marine fisheries and endangered species would be greatly facilitated by a quantitative method for identifying marine ecosystems that captures temporal dynamics at meso-scale (10s or 100s of kilometers) resolutions. Understanding the dynamics of ecosystem boundaries, which may differ according to the species...

Declines of Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) populations in the Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska could be a consequence of physical oceanographic changes associated with the 1976–77 climate regime shift. Changes in ocean climate are hypothesized to have affected the quantity, quality, and accessibility of prey, which in turn may have affect...

Declines of Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) populations in the Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska could be a consequence of physical oceanographic changes associated with the 1976-77 climate regime shift. Changes in ocean climate are hypothesized to have affected the quantity, quality and accessibility of prey, which in turn may have affecte...

The hypothesis that commercial whaling caused a sequential megafaunal collapse in the North Pacific Ocean by forcing killer whales to eat progressively smaller species of marine mammals is not supported by what is known about the biology of large whales, the ecology of killer whales, and the patterns of ecosystem change that took place in Alaska, B...

Marine environments have suffered from a lack of quantitative methods for delineating areas that are sensitive or vulnerable to particular stresses, natural and anthropogenic. We define sensitivity as the degree to which marine features respond to stresses, which are deviations of environmental conditions beyond the expected range. Vulnerability ca...

We need a basin-wide planning and multiple-objectives optimization tool to manage the risks inherent in relicensing a complex network of hydroelectric facilities and to increase the probability of a successful outcome. The goal is to find the best-suited and most cost-effective locations for enhancing environmental and recreation benefits of the wa...

Declines of Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) populations in the Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska could be a consequence of physical oceanographic changes associated with the 1976--77 climate regime shift. Changes in ocean climate are hypothesized to have affected the quantity, quality, and accessibility of prey, which in turn may have affec...

A bstract Diets of fin ( Balaenoptera physalus ), sei ( Balaenoptera borealis ), and sperm whales ( Physeter macrocephalus ) were estimated from the stomach contents of individuals killed along the British Columbia coast from 1963 to 1967. The dominant prey types of fin whales were euphausiids, with minor contributions from copepods and fish. Sei w...

Involving the public in the General Plan Update (GPU) process can be contentious, and is inherently adversarial. At Monterey County, we wanted to reduce our risk of failure, litigation or veto by special interest groups by opening up the process as much as possible. We gave the public every opportunity to understand the issues facing the county and...

Whaling records from British Columbia coastal whaling stations reliably report the positions of 9592 whales killed between 1948 and 1967. We used this positional information and oceanographic data (bathymetry, temperature, and salinity) to predict critical habitat off the coast of British Columbia for sperm (Physeter macrocephalus), sei (Balaenopte...

A bstract Data recorded from 24,862 whales killed by British Columbia coastal whaling stations between 1908 and 1967 revealed trends in the abundance, sex ratios, age structure, and distribution of sperm ( Physeter macrocephalus ), fin ( Balaenoptera physalus ), sei ( Balaenoptera borealis ), humpback ( Megaptera novaeangliae ), and blue ( Balaenop...