Dr Danielle Harris, Research Fellow

Affiliation

Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling, The Observatory, Buchanan Gardens, University of St Andrews, St Andrews Fife, KY16 9LZ, Scotland, UK

Contact Details

Telephone: (+44)(0)1334 461826

Fax: (+44)(0)1334 461800

email: dh17@st-andrews.ac.uk

Personal webpage

Research Interests

I am currently a Research Fellow at the Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling (CREEM) at the University of St Andrews and have a background in marine science, acoustics and statistics. My research focuses on wildlife population monitoring using acoustic instrumentation, specifically with the aim of estimating population densities, which are often required for management and conservation efforts. The methods that we use are applicable to many sound-producing marine and terrestrial animals, although my PhD research focused on the density estimation of blue and fin whales in both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. I have since worked on a range of postdoctoral projects involving a variety of cetacean species.

Another theme of my research is working with new technologies, such as ocean gliders, and investigating how they can be used for estimating population densities. The Southern Ocean presents a very real challenge to estimating blue and fin whale population densities. Data are hard to collect and so it is important to maximise the amount that we can learn from existing data sets, as well as design future data collection efforts. Therefore, my role in the IWC-SORP Acoustic Trends Steering Group (ATG) is to help with data analysis and survey design.

Selected Publications

Harris D, Matias L, Thomas L, Harwood J, Geissler W (2013) Applying distance sampling to fin whale calls recorded by single seismic instruments in the northeast Atlantic. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 134: 3522-3535.

Aguilar De Soto N, Gkikopoulou K, Hooker S, Isojunno S, Johnson M, Miller P, Tyack P, Wensveen P, Donovan C, Harris CM, Harris D, Marshall L, Oedekoven C, Prieto R, Thomas L (2016) From physiology to policy: a review of physiological noise effects on marine fauna with implications for mitigation. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics 27, 040008. DOI: 10.1121/2.0000299

Frasier KE, Wiggins SM, Harris D, Marques TA, Thomas L, Hildebrand JA (2016) Delphinid echolocation click detection probability on near-seafloor sensors. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 140: 1918-1930.

Hildebrand J, Baumann-Pickering S, Frasier K, Trickey J, Merkens K, Wiggins S, McDonald M, Garrison L, Harris D, Marques TA, Thomas L (2015) Passive acoustic monitoring of beaked whale densities in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientific Reports , vol 5, 16343., 10.1038/srep16343

Marques TA, Thomas L, Martin SW, Mellinger DK, Ward JA, Moretti DJ, Harris D, Tyack PL (2013) Estimating animal population density using passive acoustics. Biological Reviews 88: 287-309.

Matias L, Harris D (2015) A single-station method for the detection, classification and location of fin whale calls using ocean-bottom seismic stations . The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 138(1): 504. DOI: 10.1121/1.4922706.

Pereira A, Harris D , Tyack P, Matias L (2016) Lloyd’s mirror effect in fin whale calls and its use to infer the depth of vocalizing animals. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics 27, 070002, DOI: 10.1121/2.0000249.

Sousa A, Harris D (2015) Description and seasonal detection of two potential whale calls recorded in the Indian Ocean. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 138(3): 504. DOI: 10.1121/1.4928719

Van Opzeeland I, Samaran F, Stafford KM, Findlay K, Gedamke J, Harris D, Miller BS (2014) Towards collective circum-antarctic passive acoustic monitoring: the southern ocean hydrophone network (SOHN). Polarforschung 83(2): 47-61.

Warren VE, Marques TA, Harris D, Thomas L, Tyack PL, Aguilar de Soto N, Hickmott LS, Johnson MP (2017) Spatio-temporal variation in click production rates of beaked whales: implications for passive acoustic density estimation. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 141: 1962–1974

This page was last updated on 11 June 2018