Graduate student opportunities

Our first clue that populations are in trouble is based on the rate at which fish are caught - e.g., catch per day of fishing. This is important because in Canada, as elsewhere, there are so many fish populations that it is impossible to monitor each one. However, catch rates are often quite variable because of differences in skill among fishers, differences in the number of fish available among populations, and random variation across days, weather, or other factors that might affect a fish’s interest in taking bait.

What if catch rates didn’t decline with density? That is, what if some fish populations were declining, but catch rates stayed relatively constant, or vice versa: catch rates drop quickly, but the population is actually quite stable? This is a concern for management and conservation, because it may lead to fishing restrictions, or management actions, being misapplied, potentially leading to even worse outcomes. There are currently three main reasons why changes in catch rates may not represent changes in abundance:

  1. Fish aggregate and fishers can target and capture these aggregations, meaning catch rates stay high as abundance declines;

  2. Fish vary in their willingness to be caught, so the most catchable fish are removed first, meaning catch rates drop quickly as abundance stays high;

  3. Fishers vary in their skill and willingness to tolerate low catch rates, meaning poor anglers leave as abundance drops, so only skilled anglers remain - the measured catch rate stays high

We have at least two positions that we are looking to fill for start September 2025. These projects will address issues of catch rate variation; as such, they will complement and support one another:

  1. Masters-level opportunity

    Human-Caused Shifts in Catch Rates

    We are seeking a masters-level graduate student with interests in applying an interdisciplinary lens to this problem. The successful applicant will seek to determine variation in anglers’ ability and willingness to tolerate low catch rates. Outcomes of this survey will be used to simulate how stated preference and ability of anglers may lead to overfishing across a landscape of fisheries. The successful candidate will be active in developing, distributing, and analysing survey results to recreational fishers in British Columbia. Results will be communicated to managers in British Columbia, as well as a broader academic audience at a national or international conference, with expectation of publishing findings in a peer-reviewed journal. This is an excellent opportunity to work closely with a variety of agencies involved in fisheries management in the province, and beyond.

    The ideal applicant will be a good communicator, have interest in both the natural and social sciences, experience manipulating and analyzing data in R, and have an interest in fishing and fisheries management.

    Please email a letter of interest, an overview of courses taken and grades, and a copy of your resume to Brett van Poorten by December 15, 2024. Funding is available, though preference will be given to students applying for NSERC scholarships, or similar.

  2. Ph.D.-level opportunity

    Integrated understanding of various mechanisms linking catch rates to abundance

    While there are multiple reasons for catch rates to vary differently than abundance, there have been no efforts to determine how these mechanisms interact. Are these mechanisms always at play, but simply counter-act one another? Are there certain conditions when some mechanisms are more likely to occur? We seek a Ph.D.-level student with an interest in fishing and fish biology to actively monitor multiple fisheries in the British Columbia interior to determine how these mechanisms occur and interact in real fisheries. Specifically, the student will mark fish, interview anglers, monitor abundance through mark-recapture, and create computer models to explore outcomes. This project will also work closely with regional managers to understand their fisheries and report findings back to them. As the local experts, managers and anglers have a lot of information to provide that will greatly shape the outcomes of this work.

    The ideal applicant will be a good communicator, have interest in fishing and natural sciences, be open to learning skills in the social sciences, have experience manipulating and analyzing data in R, and have an interest in fisheries science and management.

    Please email a letter of interest, an overview of courses taken and grades, and a copy of your resume/CV to Brett van Poorten by December 15, 2024. Funding is available, though preference will be given to students applying for NSERC scholarships, or similar.

In addition, we have one position aimed at furthering our work on northern subsistence fisheries management:

  1. Masters-level opportunity

    Accounting for shifting productivity in Arctic fisheries

    We are seeking a masters-level graduate student with interests in evaluating how changes in productivity affect Arctic fisheries and how to account for these changes in management. Arctic ecosystems are experiencing profound changes as a result of climate change, which has important impacts on the communities that rely on these fisheries for their subsistence and culture. The successful candidate will adapt existing stock assessment models being used to predict productivity and abundance of Arctic Dolly Varden.

    This project is being conducted in collaboration with Gwich’in and Inuvialuit communities. Results will be communicated to biologists and research scientists at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, as well as a broader academic audience at a national or international conference, with expectation of publishing findings in a peer-reviewed journal. This is an excellent opportunity to see how science translates to policy in the Federal government, and an opportunity to make a real impact on Indigenous communities.

    The ideal applicant will be a good communicator, have experience manipulating and analyzing data in R, be interested in working with data and models, and have an interest in fisheries management.

    Please email a letter of interest, an overview of courses taken and grades, and a copy of your resume to Brett van Poorten by December 31, 2024. This position is still contingent on the availability of funding, though we still encourage applications from potential students applying for NSERC scholarships, or similar.