Professor Michael Heath
Mathematics and Statistics
Personal statement
Having graduated with a joint honors degree in Marine Biology and Oceanography, I completed a PhD on cell division phasing under light-dark cycles in populations of micro-algae, involving laboratory culturing and mathematical modelling of cell stage demography. Then in 1982 I obtained a post at the Scottish Office Marine Laboratory in Aberdeen. Initially I was researching and modelling migrations of herring using parasite fauna as natural tags, designed to improve stock assessments of herring. During the following years I led field and modelling programmes on thedispersal and survival of fish larvae, observational and modelling projects on nutrient dynamics in coastal ecosystems, and led a sequence of EU and NERC funded programmes on the population dynamics of zooplankton in the North Atlantic. These projects were designed to advise the Scottish Government on the impacts of aquaculture nutrient release on the environment, impacts of climate change on fisheries, and latterly on human and climate impacts on indices of ecosystem status.
During my time at the Marine Laboratory in Aberdeen I developed strong links with the Statistics and Modelling Science Department at Strathclyde, and in 2010 I was successful in obtaining a research post at the University funded by the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology Scotland (MASTS), which is a SFC science pooling initiative. My current research interests are the mathematical and statistical modelling of fish populations and fisheries, and the dynanics of ecosystems.
Prize And Awards
- Royal Society of Edinburgh, Sir James Black Medal
- Recipient
- 6/8/2017
Publications
- Climate change opens up new fishing possibilities for large scale trawling vessels off West Greenland
- Hatton Matthew, Laverick Jack, Banas Neil, Sivel Elliot, Heath Michael
- Fisheries Oceanography (2025)
- Sea-ice retreat from the Northeast Greenland continental shelf triggers a marine trophic cascade
- Laverick Jack H, Speirs Douglas C, Heath Michael R
- Global Change Biology Vol 31 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.70189
- Structure size may affect fish density around oil platforms
- Lawrence Joshua M, Heath Michael R, Speirs Douglas C, Fernandes Paul G
- ICES Journal of Marine Science Vol 81, pp. 1399-1411 (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsae083
- Elevated fish densities extend kilometres from oil and gas platforms
- Lawrence Joshua M, Speirs Douglas C, Heath Michael R, Fujii Toyonobu, Burns Finlay, Fernandes Paul G
- PLOS One Vol 19 (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302738
- Can we use recovery timescales to define good environmental status?
- Thorpe Robert B, Heath Michael, Lynam Christopher P
- Ecological Indicators Vol 155 (2023)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2023.110984
- Spatio-temporal variation in the zooplankton prey of lesser sandeels : species and community trait patterns from the continuous plankton recorder
- Olin Agnes B, Banas Neil S, Johns David G, Heath Michael R, Wright Peter J, Nager Ruedi G
- ICES Journal of Marine Science Vol 79, pp. 1649-1661 (2022)
- https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsac101
Research Interests
Research interests - modelling of marine ecosystems
Professional Activities
- Impact Case Studies in Maths & Stats
- Speaker
- 9/1/2025
- Modelling fisheries displacement in the North Sea and its ecosystem and economic consequences
- Speaker
- 6/12/2023
- Low-carbon sampling of high-carbon plankton across the Atlantic Ocean
- Speaker
- 5/12/2023
- Big-picture modelling to help inform marine management trade-offs in the North Sea
- Speaker
- 13/9/2023
- Fisheries Innovation Scotland Annual Conference
- Keynote/plenary speaker
- 22/8/2016
- DEFRA (Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) (External organisation)
- Advisor
- 23/2/2016
Projects
- Marine match-mismatch: the ecological consequences of climate driven changes in migration and reproductive phenology in the sea
- Laverick, Jack (Principal Investigator) Diele, Karen (CoI) Heath, Mike (CoI)
- Phenology is the study of seasonal biological events, such as migration, egg laying, or flowering. The iconic ‘match-mismatch hypothesis’ (Cushing, 1974, 1975) predicts that changes in phenology may affect synchronicity with energy sources and so impact fitness. Examples of this may be failure to migrate in time to exploit a food source elsewhere, or to lay eggs to synchronise hatching with seasonally available food. As species rely on different environmental cues to time these events, it is possible that climate change will disrupt important ecological connections with cascading consequences at the level of the ecosystem.
Although originally conceived in the context of marine biology, the match-mismatch hypothesis has since been embraced as a general concept in ecology. As evidence of phenological shifts in response to changing climate mounts (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003), there has been a surge in publications in the ecological literature reviewing and re-evaluating the hypothesis (Kharouba and Wolkovich 2023; Samplonius et al. 2021). In general, the conclusion is that the conditions under which phenological asynchrony leads to effects on fitness depends on the ecosystem context – in particular the extent to which a consumer species or group is bottom-up or top-down regulated.
The central question for this studentship is: under what circumstances will the widely observed climate-related shifts in phenology lead to notable consequences at the level of the ecosystem?
While ecosystem models already include many aspects of known ecology and trophic coupling, the processes governing phenology and the sensitivity of the system to match-mismatch effects are glaringly missing. Ideally, phenological characteristics should be an emergent property of such models. This is the case for phytoplankton and lower trophic levels, but not for mid- and higher trophic levels. The proposed PhD project aims to spearhead a step change in ecosystem modelling by representing these processes. - 30-Jan-2024
- Transformative Research Actions for Resilient Coastal Communities (TRACC)
- Heath, Mike (Principal Investigator)
- 01-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2028
- Ocean-ICU Improving Carbon Understanding (OceanICU)
- Speirs, Douglas (Principal Investigator) Heath, Mike (Co-investigator) Laverick, Jack (Researcher)
- 01-Jan-2022 - 31-Jan-2027
- Ecosystem Change, Offshore Wind, Net Gain and Seabirds (ECOWINGS)
- Speirs, Douglas (Principal Investigator) Banas, Neil (Co-investigator) Heath, Mike (Co-investigator) Laverick, Jack (Researcher)
- 01-Jan-2022 - 31-Jan-2026
- Art of Mapping Ocean Change
- Banas, Neil (Principal Investigator) Heath, Mike (Co-investigator)
- 25-Jan-2021 - 01-Jan-2022
- Shaping ecosystem based fisheries management (SEAwise)
- Heath, Mike (Principal Investigator) Speirs, Douglas (Co-investigator) Laverick, Jack (Researcher)
- 01-Jan-2021 - 30-Jan-2025
Contact
Professor
Michael
Heath
Mathematics and Statistics
Email: m.heath@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 548 3591