Biography

Phil Trathan is a senior research scientist with an extensive publication record on the biology, ecology, and sustainable management of marine resources in the Antarctic and South Atlantic.

He has wide experience and an established track record of interdisciplinary research, commissioned research, and international collaboration.

Phil carries out fundamental research into the marine ecosystem of the Southern Ocean, in particular studies that identify the causes of spatial and temporal variability in ecosystem relationships.

His current focus is on developing an understanding of natural predators and the way that they exploit resources. He also has an interest in the sustainable use of marine living resources and the ways ecosystems can be managed. He therefore also has a natural interest in the overlap between dependent species and commercial fisheries that target the same resource.

 Phil is currently the senior research scientist leading the British Antarctic Survey’s core-funded science that is investigating predator–prey–fishery interactions in the Scotia Sea. Other research activities focus on the foraging activity of predator species and their interactions with the physical environment, particularly relating organisms to the mesoscale and large-scale hydrographic features of the Southern Ocean.

Phil is also interested in inter-disciplinary studies on the Antarctic krill population in the Scotia Sea. This includes studies of krill and their predators, and of the oceanographic environment of the Southwest Atlantic and beyond. Through the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, Phil has worked within numerous collaborators on questions relating to how the krill-dependent Southern Ocean ecosystem should be managed.