James Jeffrey Waggitt

Bangor University · School of Ocean Sciences

With the rapid expansion of offshore windfarms (OWFs) globally, there is an urgent need to assess and predict effects on marine species, habitats, and ecosystem functioning. Doing so at shelf-wide scale while simultaneously accounting for the concurrent influence of climate change will require dynamic, multitrophic, multiscalar, ecosystem-centric a...

Mobile marine protected areas have been proposed for the conservation of highly seasonal or mobile marine megafauna. However, seasonal data on the distribution of marine wildlife to inform protected areas are generally scarce worldwide, especially for cetaceans, which makes dynamic solutions difficult to implement. Furthermore, conservation objecti...

This dataset contains 10km summarised occurrence data for terrestrial mammals as mapped in the Atlas of Mammal of Great Britain and Northern Ireland published by the Mammal Society in 2020. For each species 10km grid squares were categorised based on whether the species was recorded in that square only the current atlas time period (2000-2016), onl...

Understanding how ecological processes combine to shape population dynamics is crucial in a rapidly changing world. Evidence has been emerging for how fundamental drivers of density dependence in mobile species are related to two differing types of environmental variation—temporal variation in climate, and spatiotemporal variation in food resources...

Persisting knowledge gaps relating to the ecological context and potential environmental impacts of marine renewable energy (MRE) devices continue to add substantial costs and uncertainty to MRE projects globally. Increasingly sophisticated technological approaches to environmental monitoring can have fundamental non-trivial shortcomings for enviro...

Europe has set ambitious green energy targets, to which offshore renewable developments (ORDs) will make a significant contribution. Governments are legally required to deliver ORDs sustainably; however, they may have detrimental impacts on wildlife, especially those already experiencing declines due to climate change. Population viability analysis...

The processes and factors which affect shell growth and repair in molluscs are poorly understood. In this study, the capabilities of shell growth and repair in the marine gastropod Buccinum undatum were investigated experimentally by implementing laboratory-controlled mechanical damage to the shell margin/lip. Three key factors, life stage (juvenil...

Maritime traffic is increasing globally, with a four-fold increase in commercial vessel movements between 1992 and 2012. Vessels contribute to noise and air pollution, provide pathways for non-native species, and collide with marine wildlife. While knowledge of shipping trends and potential environmental impacts exists at both local and global leve...

To effectively implement ecosystem-based fisheries management, tools are needed that are capable of exploring the likely consequences of potential management action for the whole ecosystem. Quantitative modelling tools can be used to explore how ecosystems might respond to potential management measures, but no one model can reliably forecast all as...

Habitat-use and distribution models are essential tools of conservation biology. For wide-ranging species, such models may be challenged by the expanse, remoteness and variability of their habitat, these challenges often being compounded by the species’ mobility. In marine environments, direct observations and sampling are usually impractical over...

Marine mammals have been proposed as ecosystem sentinels due to their conspicuous nature, wide ranging distribution, and capacity to respond to changes in ecosystem structure and functioning. In southern European Atlantic waters, their response to climate variability has been little explored, partly because of the inherent difficulty of investigati...

Understanding ecosystem dynamics within shallow shelf seas is of great importance to support marine spatial management of natural populations and activities such as fishing and offshore renewable energy production to combat climate change. Given the possibility of future changes, a baseline is needed to predict ecosystems responses to such changes....

Lagrangian Particle Tracking Models (PTMs) have a wide range of applications in the marine environment, from predicting the dispersal of microplastics to larval transport. The increased complexity of ocean-modelling techniques has seen simulation of transport move from probabilistic approaches (e.g. advection and random walk) to more deterministic...

Human activity and development in coastal environments can pose threats to pursuit-diving seabirds. This study demonstrates that rangefinder binoculars can be used to provide useful measurements of the behaviour and movement of European Shags Phalacrocorax aristotelis in a small coastal area.

Aquaculture and marine renewable energy are two expanding sectors of the Blue Economy in Europe. Assessing the long-term environmental impacts in terms of eutrophication and noise is a priority for both the EU Water Framework Directive and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, and cumulative impacts will be important for the Maritime Spatial Pla...

The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most rapidly warming regions on earth, and it is likely that the abundance and distribution of marine predators will change as a result.Procellariiform seabirds are highly mobile predators, which target specific habitat characteristics associated with underlying distributions of prey and areas of increased prey...

Aim: Europe's only globally critically endangered seabird, the Balearic shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus), is thought to have expanded its post-breeding range north-wards into UK waters, though its at sea distribution there is not yet well understood. This study aims to identify environmental factors associated with the species' presence , map the...

Understanding how different drivers shape relationships between abundance and body mass (size spectra) is important for understanding trophic and competitive interactions in food webs and for predicting the effects of human pressures. Here, we sample seabed communities from small polychaetes (<0.001 g) to large fish (>1 kg) in the Celtic Sea and th...

The Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) remains a high priority conservation species despite recent increases in UK populations. Specifically, a marked increase in surveyed site occupancy (50%) was observed on the Isle of Anglesey (North Wales) between 2002 and 2009. Understanding the drivers that act upon the distribution of L. lutra will allow for more...

Over the last 25 years, the harbour porpoise ( Phocoena phocoena ) has made a significant return to the Southern Bight of the North Sea and the English Channel due to a shift in distribution from northerly regions. Although the ecological drivers of this return are unclear, this species faces multiple threats in the region, including by-catch and h...

Temporal variations in the numbers of foraging seabirds usually coincide with concurrent variations in physical processes influencing prey availability. Responses to periodic tidal currents are commonly reported, with certain tidal states being favoured. By contrast, responses to intermittent meteorological events have rarely been reported, even th...

The main observed effects of climate change on marine mammals globally have been geographical range shifts and loss of habitat through ice cover loss, changes to the food web, increased exposure to algal toxins and susceptibility to disease. Climate-change impacts on marine mammals are particularly evident in polar regions where there has been phys...

Distribution maps of cetaceans and seabirds at basin and monthly scales are needed for conservation and marine management. These are usually created from standardized and systematic aerial and vessel surveys, with recorded animal densities interpolated across study areas. However, distribution maps at basin and monthly scales have previously not be...

Mapping the distribution of seabirds at sea is fundamental to understanding their ecology and making informed decisions on their conservation. Until recently, estimates of at-sea distributions were generally derived from boat-based visual surveys. Increasingly however, seabird tracking is seen as an alternative but each has potential biases. To com...

With rapid expansion of offshore renewables, a broader perspective on their ecological implications is timely to predict marine predator responses to environmental change. Strong currents interacting with man-made structures can generate complex three-dimensional wakes that can make prey more accessible. Whether localised wakes from man-made struct...

Although many studies have investigated the effects of disturbance and environmental drivers on marine ecosystems, comparatively few have studied their interactions. Using fuzzy coded biological traits, we compared the functional composition, diversity and evenness of benthic communities in the English Channel and in the Celtic and Irish Seas acros...

Understanding links between habitat characteristics and foraging efficiency helps predict how environmental changes influence populations of top predators. This study examines whether measurements of prey (clupeids) availability varied over stratification gradients, and determined if any of those measurements coincided with aggregations of foraging...

Whilst the development of the tidal stream industry will help meet marine renewable energy (MRE) targets, the potential impacts on mobile marine predators using these highly dynamic environments need consideration. Environmental impact assessments (EIAs) required for potential MRE sites generally involve site-specific animal density estimates obtai...

Animal‐attached technologies can be powerful means to quantify space‐use and behaviour, however, there are also ethical implications associated with capturing and instrumenting animals. Furthermore, tagging approaches are not necessarily well‐suited for examining the movements of multiple individuals within specific, local areas of interest. Here,...

As harbour porpoises Phocoena phocoena are abundant within tidal stream environments, mitigating population-level impacts from tidal stream energy extraction is considered a conservation priority. An understanding of their spatial and temporal occupancy of these habitats at a regional-scale will help steer installations towards locations which maxi...

Despite rapid development of marine renewable energy, relatively little is known of the immediate and future impacts on the surrounding ecosystems. Quantifying the behavior and distribution of animals around marine renewable energy devices is crucial for understanding, predicting, and potentially mitigating any threats posed by these installations....

The marine renewable energy industry is expanding globally in response to increased energy demands and the desire to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. Within the UK, Wales has the potential for the development of diverse marine renewable technologies, with a strong tidal range resource, areas of high tidal current energy, and a spatially limited wa...

This study investigated the effects of a community-led temperate marine reserve in Lamlash Bay, Firth of Clyde, Scotland, on commercially important populations of European lobster (Homarus gammarus), brown crab (Cancer pagurus), and velvet swimming crabs (Necora puber). Potting surveys conducted over 4 years revealed significantly higher catch per...

Rapid development of Marine Renewable Energy Devices (MREDs) strongly focuses on tidal and wave sites, although little is known of impacts on surrounding ecosystems. Quantification of the behavior and distribution of animals around MREDs is crucial to understanding these impacts.. The NERC/Defra collaboration FLOw, Water column and Benthic ECology...

Tidal stream turbines could have several direct impacts upon pursuit-diving seabirds foraging within tidal stream environments (mean horizontal current speeds > 2 ms−1), including collisions and displacement. Understanding how foraging seabirds respond to temporally variable but predictable hydrodynamic conditions immediately around devices could i...

1.The rapid increase in the number of tidal stream turbine arrays will create novel and unprecedented levels of anthropogenic activity within habitats characterized by horizontal current speeds exceeding 2 ms−1. However, the potential impacts on pursuit-diving seabirds exploiting these tidal stream environments remain largely unknown. Identifying s...

The construction of anthropogenic structures within coastal regions, in particular those associated with marine renewable energy installations, will change these environments physically through the alteration of hydrodynamic regimes and the removal of energy. Top-predators (cetaceans and seabirds) exploiting coastal regions seem to depend upon hydr...

Energetic tidal-stream environments are characterised by frequent, variable yet broadly predictable currents containing ephemeral flow structures that change across multiple spatiotemporal scales. Marine mammals and seabirds (marine megafauna) often frequent such sites but increasingly these locations are targeted for renewable energy extraction; l...

The drive towards sustainable energy has seen rapid development of marine renewable energy devices (MREDs). The NERC/Defra collaboration FLOw, Water column and Benthic ECology 4-D (FLOWBEC-4D) is investigating the environmental and ecological effects of installing and operating wave and tidal energy devices. The FLOWBEC sonar platform combines seve...

The drive towards sustainable energy has seen rapid development of marine renewable energy devices, and current efforts are focusing on wave and tidal stream energy. The NERC/Defra collaboration FLOWBEC-4D (Flow, Water column & Benthic Ecology 4D) is addressing the lack of knowledge of the environmental and ecological effects of installing and oper...

The NERC/Defra collaboration FLOWBEC-4D (FLOw, Water column & Benthic ECology 4D) is addressing the lack of knowledge of the environmental and ecological effects of installing and operating large arrays of wave and tidal energy devices. The FLOWBEC sonar platform combines a number of instruments to record information at a range of physical and mult...

Intraspecific interactions have important roles in shaping foraging behaviours. For colonial species such as seabirds, intense competition for prey around colonies may drive differences in foraging behaviour between age-classes and sexes or lead to individual specialisation. While much research has focussed on understanding these differences in for...

The rapid increase in marine renewable energy installations (MREIs) will result in the placing of many novel man-made structures within seabird foraging habitats, and such structures could potentially impact seabird populations directly and indirectly, positively and negatively. However, whether these potential impacts represent real ones, such tha...

It is likely that there will be a substantial increase in the number of tidal stream turbines within the UK over the next decade. However, the ecological impacts upon marine top-predators, including seabirds, remain largely unknown. Although tidal stream turbines could have many direct and indirect impacts upon seabird populations, it is the risk o...

FLOWBEC is a three year NERC & DEFRA funded project that aims to identify the physical conditions influencing the behaviour of fish, their predators, and benthic communities using developments in high resolution physical modelling and state of the art observation systems. The development of an understanding of these linkages and the potential chang...

Sexual segregation in foraging and migratory behaviour is widespread among sexually dimorphic marine vertebrates. It has also been described for a number of monomorphic species, yet the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. We examined variation among years, seasons and age-classes in sex-specific foraging and over-wintering behaviour in the...