Expertise:
Mathematical modelling of marine food webs and fisheries
I carried out my PhD at Bangor University on laboratory experiments and modelling of the synchronisation of algal cell division under light:dark cycles. I then went to work at the Fisheries Laboratory in Aberdeen on herring stock assessment. During my time in Aberdeen I carried out research and modelling on fish recruitment processes, zooplankton population dynamics and nutrient cycling in inshore ecosystems. Then, in 2010 I moved to the University of Strathclyde and focussed on development of end-to-end (microbes to megafauna) models of shelf sea ecosystems, with a particular emphasis on simulating fishery yields and the impact of fisheries on the ecosystem. This is the research area that I am bringing into MERP
Selected Publications
Heath, M.R and Cook, R.M. (2015). Hindcasting the quantity and composition of discards by demersal fisheries in the North Sea. PLoS One | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0117078 March 16 2015.
Heath, M.R., Cook, R.M., Cameron, A.I., Morris, D.J. and Speirs, D.C. (2014). Cascading ecological effects of eliminating fishery discards. Nature Communications 5:3893 doi: 10.1038/ncomms4893
Heath, M.R., Speirs, D.C. and Steele, J.H. (2014). Understanding patterns and processes in models of trophic cascades. Ecology Letters 17, 101-114.
Heath, M.R. (2012). Ecosystem limits to food web fluxes and fisheries yields in the North Sea simulated with an end-to-end food web model. Progress in Oceanography (Special issue: End-to-end modelling: Towards Comparative Analysis of Marine Ecosystem Organisation) 102, 42-66.
Useful links
http://outreach.mathstat.strath.ac.uk/outreach/e2e/
https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/heathmichaelprof/