Simon James Pittman

Simon James Pittman
University of Oxford | OX · School of Geography and the Environment

B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D.

About

165
Publications
102,501
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Introduction
My primary area of research is seascape ecology with a particular focus on the application to protected area management and marine spatial planning. I work with government agencies, conservation organisations and academics to solve complex biodiversity conservation challenges. I have also developed transdisciplinary concepts such as City Marine Parks, Ocean Cities and Cultural Seascape Ecology to support spatial planning, nature-based solutions and sustainable development goals.
Additional affiliations
January 2020 - March 2021
Oxford Seascape Ecology Lab
Position
  • Research Associate
June 2012 - January 2022
University of Plymouth
Position
  • Research Associate
October 2007 - November 2011
University of the Virgin Islands
Position
  • Resident Adjunct Research Professor

Publications

Publications (165)
Article
Full-text available
Effective management of coral reef ecosystems requires accurate, quantitative and spatially explicit information on patterns of species richness at spatial scales relevant to the management process. We combined empirical modelling techniques, remotely sensed data, field observations and GIS to develop a novel multi-scale approach for predicting fis...
Article
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Two of the major limitations to effective management of coral reef ecosystems are a lack of information on the spatial distribution of marine species and a paucity of data on the interacting environmental variables that drive distributional patterns. Advances in marine remote sensing, together with the novel integration of landscape ecology and adv...
Article
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Many marine species have a multi-phase ontogeny, with each phase usually associated with a spatially and temporally discrete set of movements. For many fish and decapod crustaceans that live inshore, a tri-phasic life cycle is widespread, involving: (1) the movement of planktonic eggs and larvae to nursery areas; (2) a range of routine shelter and...
Article
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Coral reef ecosystems support high fish biodiversity through ecological interactions with structural complexity across multiple spatial scales including coral colony architecture and the surrounding seascape structure. In an era where the complexity of coral reef ecosystems is being diminished, understanding the importance of structural characteris...
Article
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Marine spatial planning (MSP) has emerged as a tool to enable marine ecosystem-based managementthat seeks to balance human demands for ocean space with environmental protection. However, there is a history of thinking about our ocean systems as spaces, not places. As a result, most MSPs have been implemented without consideration of place. The rela...
Article
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Context Seascape connectivity refers to how the spatial configuration of marine habitats facilitates or hinders the movement of organisms, nutrients, materials or energy. Predicting and ranking potential connectivity among habitat patches for coral reef fishes helps to understand how reef fishes could utilize and connect multiple habitat types thro...
Article
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Shallow coastal lagoons are vital ecosystems for many aquatic species and understanding their biodiversity is essential. Very little is known about the distribution and abundance of globally threatened marine megafauna in coastal lagoons of the Arabian Gulf. This study combined underwater and aerial surveys to investigate the distributions and rela...
Article
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Coastal ecosystems are integral to global carbon cycling and are increasingly recognised for their role in mitigating climate change. Within these ecosystems, the dynamics of carbon storage are diverse, varying significantly across different habitats. However, existing management strategies often focus predominantly on vegetated habitats neglecting...
Chapter
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Coastal lagoons represent one of the most productive and diverse ecosystems in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) due to their position at the dynamic transition zone between land and sea. UAE’s coastal lagoons, also known as khors, are home to a diverse assemblage of organisms, including many resident and endangered species that rely on the interconne...
Article
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Coastal habitat quality and quantity have been significantly eroded by stressors operating and interacting across the land-sea interface, prompting a recent proliferation in coastal restoration programs worldwide. These initiatives often recognize connectivity as a critical driver of ecosystem functioning, yet most do not include connectivity as a...
Article
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Coral reefs are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress from global warming, ocean acidification, fishing, and water pollution. In the Caribbean and Western Atlantic, multiple stressors have resulted in widespread losses of the dominant reef‐building Acroporid corals, two of which are listed as threatened species under the 1973 U.S. Endangered...
Article
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Eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) generate structurally complex reef systems that offer diverse ecosystem services. However, there is limited understanding of how reef structure translates into reef condition. This knowledge gap might be better addressed if oyster reef structure could be more rapidly assessed. Conventional in situ monitoring...
Chapter
Coastal and marine classifications, both spatially explicit in the form of maps and non-spatial representations of the environment, are critical to the effective implementation of ecosystem-based management strategies such as marine spatial planning. This chapter provides an overview of a wide range of coastal classifications and classified maps de...
Article
Seamounts are commercially important fishing grounds. Yet, little is known about their physical characteristics as fish habitat, important for informing conservation and ecosystem-based management. This study examines how multiscale seabed spatial heterogeneity influences commercially important fish families at three Southwest Indian Ridge seamount...
Article
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Context Seamounts are abundant geomorphological features creating seabed spatial heterogeneity, a main driver of deep-sea biodiversity. Despite its ecological importance, substantial knowledge gaps exist on the character of seamount spatial heterogeneity. Objectives This study aimed to map, quantify and compare seamount seascapes to test whether i...
Article
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Benthic components of tropical mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) are home to diverse fish assemblages, but the effect of multiscale spatial benthic characteristics on MCE fish is not well understood. To investigate the influence of fine‐scale benthic seascape structure and broad‐scale environmental characteristics on MCE fish, we surveyed fish ass...
Article
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Mesophotic (30–150 m) and rariphotic (150–300 m) deeper reef habitats are important from an ecological and conservation perspective, yet remain understudied. Key knowledge gaps exist on the environmental patterns and processes that drive and shape their geographical distributions. Understanding these is particularly important for regions as the Wes...
Article
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Aim Gorgonian forests are among the most complex of subtidal habitats in the Mediterranean Sea, supporting high biodiversity and providing diverse ecosystem services. Despite their iconic status, the geographical distribution and condition of gorgonian species is poorly known. Using multiple online data sources, our primary aims were to compile, ma...
Article
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Mangroves and seagrasses are important nurseries for many marine species, and this function is linked to the complexity and context of these habitats in coastal seascapes. It is also connected to bathymetric features that influence habitat availability, and the accessibility of refuge habitats, but the significance of terrain variation for nursery...
Article
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Context Landscape modification alters the condition of ecosystems and the structure of terrain, with widespread impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Seafloor dredging impacts a diversity of flora and fauna in many coastal landscapes, and these processes also transform three-dimensional terrain features. The potential ecological signif...
Article
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Coastal seascapes are productive and diverse land-sea systems that provide many valuable benefits yet are increasingly threatened by human activity. Scaling up of nature-based solutions (NbS) to effectively protect, sustainably manage, and restore coastal seascapes is urgently required for mitigation of climate change and biodiversity loss while al...
Preprint
Full-text available
Context Seamounts are abundant geomorphological features creating seabed spatial heterogeneity, a main driver of deep-sea biodiversity. Despite its ecological importance, substantial knowledge gaps exist on the character of seamount spatial heterogeneity. Objectives This study aimed to map, quantify and compare seamount seascapes to test whether in...
Article
Landscape modification alters the condition of ecosystems and the complexity of terrain, with consequences for animal assemblages and ecosystem functioning. In coastal seascapes, dredging is routine practice for extracting sediments and maintaining navigation channels worldwide. Dredging modifies processes and assemblages by favouring species with...
Article
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Habitat fragmentation of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) transforms the spatial pattern of seascapes by changing both the total area and spatial configuration of the habitat patches. The ecological effects of SAV seascapes are most often assessed using metrics of biological community composition (e.g., species and assemblage changes). We know co...
Book
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This project reports on seagrass mapping activities and methodology through a comprehensive global review of expert knowledge and the published literature in the past decade (2012-2021). The aim is to identify geographical data gaps, barriers to progress, associated mapping costs and to evaluate potential solutions for mapping seagrass at a global...
Article
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Seascape ecology is an emerging pattern‐oriented and integrative science conceptually linked to landscape ecology. It aims to quantify multidimensional spatial structure in the sea and reveal its ecological consequences. The seascape ecology approach has made important advances in shallow coastal environments, and increasing exploration and mapping...
Article
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Coastal habitats have experienced significant degradation and fragmentation in recent decades under the strain of interacting ecosystem stressors. To maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, coastal managers and restoration practitioners face the urgent tasks of identifying priority areas for protection and developing innovative, scalable a...
Article
Coastal habitat mapping is a potentially powerful enabling tool to inform the design of strategies and actions in coastal zone planning and management, biodiversity conservation and more recently for blue carbon accounting. Habitat mapping is typically carried out by experts in remote sensing and geographical information systems, and rarely integra...
Technical Report
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PS 6 seeks to ensure that project studies take account of all of these factors in an approach that is driven by the understanding of ecological patterns and processes and not project impacts. Once biodiversity value has been defined at an ecologically appropriate scale then AoI can be used to define the potential direct, indirect and cumulative imp...
Article
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Abstract Background Atlantic tarpon (Megalops atlanticus) are a highly migratory species ranging along continental and insular coastlines of the Atlantic Ocean. Due to their importance to regional recreational and sport fisheries, research has been focused on large-scale movement patterns of reproductively active adults in areas where they are of h...
Article
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Seascape ecology, the marine-centric counterpart to landscape ecology, is rapidly emerging as an interdisciplinary and spatially explicit ecological science with relevance to marine management, biodiversity conservation and restoration. While important progress in this field has been made in the past decade, there has been no coherent prioritisatio...
Article
Landscape ecology has fundamentally changed the way ecologists view the world through a greater understanding of the links between spatial patterns and ecological processes. Until recently, landscape ecology has been largely a two-dimensional (2D) science focused on the spatial patterning of 2D planar surfaces rather than three-dimensional (3D) str...
Article
The structure of seafloor terrain affects the distribution and diversity of animals in all seascapes. Effects of terrain on fish assemblages have been reported from most ecosystems, but it is unclear whether bathymetric effects vary among seascapes or change in response to seafloor modification by humans. We reviewed the global literature linking s...
Technical Report
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Project ROPE (Response of predators to Protection and Enhancement), funded by the European Maritime & Fisheries Fund (EMFF) and implemented by University of Plymouth aims to improve understanding of the movements of commercially and recreationally important fish and crustaceans in the Lyme Bay region of South Devon and Dorset. Project ROPE applies...
Article
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The results of this work can inform future policies at a national and emirate level, related to spatial use planning and management, biodiversity action plans and new protected or managed areas delineation, as well as other area-based management tools that can support the sustainable management of these marine ecosystems. The following recommendati...
Article
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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) are custodians of diverse and productive coastal and marine habitats of local, regional and global importance for biodiversity. Healthy thriving coastal and marine habitats provide a wealth of benefits including food security, coastal protection, mitigation of pollution and opportunities for the growth of ecotourism,...
Article
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To identify and manage APIMBs, a systematic approach is needed where ecological connectivity and representativity of conservation features is a central goal. A series of recommendations are provided below that can inform strategies and plans and ultimately enable the UAE in managing these priority areas. By implementing these recommendations, the U...
Article
Full-text available
Coral reef ecosystems are declining due to multiple interacting stressors. A bioassessment framework focused on stressor-response associations was developed to help organize and communicate complex ecological information to support coral reef conservation. This study applied the Biological Condition Gradient (BCG), initially developed for freshwate...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background Atlantic tarpon (Megalops atlanticus) are highly migratory species ranging along continental and insular coastlines of the Atlantic Ocean. Despite broad geographic distribution and importance as recreational fisheries, little is known about space-use patterns of tarpon within the Eastern Caribbean. Acoustic telemetry was used to track ta...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background Atlantic tarpon (Megalops atlanticus) are a highly migratory species ranging along continental and insular coastlines of the Atlantic Ocean. Due to their importance to regional recreational and sport fisheries, research has been focused on large-scale movement patterns of reproductively active adults in areas where they are of high econo...
Article
Full-text available
Transient fish spawning aggregations (FSAs) are critical life‐cycle events for many commercially important species, in which fish congregate in huge numbers to spawn at predictable times and places. This behavior makes them exceptionally vulnerable to fishing. The “illusion of plenty” and poor access to monitoring tools and techniques has resulted...
Article
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Healthy marine ecosystems provide a wide range of resources and services that support life on Earth and contribute to human wellbeing. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are accepted as an important tool for the restoration and maintenance of marine ecosystem structure, function, health and ecosystem integrity through the conservation of significant spe...
Article
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Engineered structures in the open ocean are becoming more frequent with the expansion of the marine renewable energy industry and offshore marine aquaculture. Floating engineered structures function as artificial patch reefs providing novel and relatively stable habitat structure not otherwise available in the pelagic water column. The enhanced phy...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Chapter 5 Invasive Mussels This chapter focuses on characterizing spatial and temporal patterns of invasive zebra (Dreissena polymorpha) and quagga (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis) mussels in the study area and highlights some of the known ecological consequences.
Article
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We contend that coastal cities are hope spots for environmentally responsible and socially progressive city living and critically important places to prioritize regenerative actions for improved planetary health. Here, we present our holistic concept of Ocean Cities together with a global Call for Urgent Action to citizens and leadership of all coa...
Article
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Emma V. Sheehan, Danielle Bridger, Llucia Mascorda Cabre, Amy Cartwright, David Cox, Sian Rees, Luke Holmes and Simon Pittman of the University of Plymouth explain the ecological and social benefits of offshore bivalve farming. https://fstjournal.org/features/33-2/offshore-bivalve-farming
Article
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Coastal cities continue to experience rapid urbanisation and population growth worldwide, linked to the diverse economic and social benefits flowing from proximity to the sea. Growing concern over human impacts upon coastal waters and global strategic goals for healthier cities requires that coastal cities develop innovative ways to inspire and emp...
Article
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Determining the ecological roles that fishes play in the complex trophic relationships of coral reef systems depends on our ability to detect changes in the fish community composition and function. The functional redundancy of fishes in different habitats is highly influenced by species composition and ontogenetic shifts in diets and feeding behavi...
Article
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Functional diversity (FD) metrics quantify the trait diversity in biological assemblages and act as a proxy for the diverse ecological functions performed in the community. Analyses of FD offer a potentially useful tool to identify functional changes in diverse, complex, and disturbed marine ecosystems such as coral reefs, yet this metric is rarely...
Presentation
Full-text available
A concept of a marine park for coastal cities with application to the Plymouth region in the United Kingdom
Preprint
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and networks of MPAs are being implemented globally as a spatial management tool for achieving conservation objectives. There has been considerable progress in reaching the prescribed 10% protected area target for 2020, outlined in the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi Target 11 and the United Nations Sustainabl...
Article
Full-text available
Anthropogenic disturbances in coastal and marine environments have resulted in the transformation of vegetated benthic habitat spatial patterns, which is thought to influence the distribution, community composition, and behavior of marine fauna. In Biscayne Bay, Florida, USA, freshwater discharges into nearshore areas have resulted in the fragmenta...
Article
Full-text available
• Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and networks of MPAs are being implemented globally as a spatial management tool for achieving conservation objectives. There has been considerable progress in reaching the prescribed 10% protected area target for 2020, outlined in the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi Target 11 and the United Nations Sustaina...