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Rachel Mawer

@rmawer.bsky.social

93 followers 150 following 30 posts

Researcher interested in fish movement + acoustic telemetry Currently at Swansea Uni

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Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · Apr 10

New paper! We estimated the reproductive timing of the critically endangered #flapperskate by making use of a pre-existing #citizenscience photo ID database 📸 with @davemarinebio.glasgow.ac.uk @jathorburn.bsky.social Paper ⏩ doi.org/10.1111/jfb.... & summary below ⏬

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Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · 19h

Two great days this week tagging skate in the Bristol Channel - we managed to catch + tag individuals across four species of skate 🥳 These skate will be tracked for the next few years across our channel-wide array so we can learn about their movement patterns and spatial usage #trackingnotslacking

Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · 13d

This week we've deployed another line of acoustic receivers across the Bristol Channel 🥳 hopefully, these receivers will give us a better idea of when our tagged fish, sharks + skate migrate out from the channel, and maybe detect some animals from further afield 👀

Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · 20d

Really nice to see this article on the sustainable lobster fishery and marine conservation at Tristan da Cunha - a great example of a community closely entwined with conservation and the challenges with enforcing a huge no-take zone (687000 km^2!) in such a remote area www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

Tristan da Cunha: The lobsters keeping Earth's remotest town afloat

The most remote inhabited island is racing to protect its seas – and only source of income.

www.bbc.co.uk

Reposted by Rachel Mawer

David Bailey @davemarinebio.glasgow.ac.uk · 21d

Victoria Paterson and I are abseiling off a building here at the University of Glasgow to raise money for student expeds. This is to help disadvanaged students take up these amazing, life changing opportunities @uofglasgow.bsky.social
www.justgiving.com/page/paterso...

We'd appreciate you support

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Reposted by Rachel Mawer

Bryce Stewart @bd-stew.bsky.social · 25d

Fishermen & divers of the UK we need YOU! Our #octopus bloom surveys have been extended to Sept 21st. If you haven't already done so, please fill out the fishermen's survey survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90884550/... or divers survey survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90886025/... Thank you! Please share widely! 🐙

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Reposted by Rachel Mawer

Théo Michelot @theomichelot.bsky.social · 26d

The hmmTMB paper is finally out in the Journal of Statistical Software!

An R package for hidden Markov models with random effects, flexible spline-based covariate effects, and fast inference using TMB or Stan.

Check out the GIthub repository for more examples.

doi.org/10.18637/jss...

hmmTMB: Hidden Markov Models with Flexible Covariate Effects in R by Théo Michelot

<p>Hidden Markov models (HMMs) are widely applied in studies where a discrete-valued process of interest is observed indirectly. They have for example been used to model behavior from human and animal...

doi.org

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Reposted by Rachel Mawer

The FSBI @thefsbi.bsky.social · Jul 22

Using a pre-existing photo-ID database, Mawer et al. identified potential signs of reproductive behaviours in flapper skate, which suggest a winter-spring mating period doi.org/10.1111/jfb.70044 #FishSci #JFB

doi.org

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Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · Jul 10

Yesterday out downloading receivers along the Gower, perfect day for it and a highlight being the sunfish we saw on the way out 🤩

Reposted by Rachel Mawer

The FSBI @thefsbi.bsky.social · Jun 30

#JFB: Using citizen science photographs to identify reproductive events in an oviparous elasmobranch doi.org/10.1111/jfb.70044 #FishSci

doi.org

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Reposted by Rachel Mawer

Professor Jodie Rummer @physiologyfish.bsky.social · Jun 19

New paper out today! 🦈
We tested whether blacktip reef shark dorsal fins are reliable for photo ID – they are!
✅ Stable over time
✅ Unique among individuals
📍Long-term dataset from French Polynesia
Led by Physioshark
🔗 doi.org/10.1111/jfb....
#SharkScience #MarineBiology
@jcuofficial.bsky.social

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Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · Jun 19

It's #worldalbatrossday ! I was lucky enough to see lots of adult Atlantic yellow-nose albatrosses nesting back in September, such gorgeous birds 😍

Reposted by Rachel Mawer

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · Jun 18

Oh wow- my article about what's happened to sharks since Jaws came out 50 years ago is featured in today's JSTOR Daily newsletter!

daily.jstor.org/jaws-feather...

Jaws, Feathers, and Family Abolition - JSTOR Daily

Well-researched stories from The Revelator, Smithsonian Magazine, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

daily.jstor.org

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Reposted by Rachel Mawer

Colin Simpfendorfer @sharkcolin.bsky.social · Jun 11

@fao.org released their 2025 report on the status of marine fisheries resources (openknowledge.fao.org/items/ac6d51...).
In talking to the media about the report at #UNOC FAO stated that ~57% of sharks stocks are sustainably fished (t.co/fVFnZkY4vQ).
This fact is WRONG
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Review of the state of world marine fishery resources – 2025

Marine fisheries are crucial to the food security and nutrition, economy and overall well-being of coastal communities. Maintaining the long-term prosperity and sustainability of marine fisheries is t...

openknowledge.fao.org

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Reposted by Rachel Mawer

James A Campbell @rtbecard.bsky.social · Jun 16

Put this on your reading list: Continuous-time HMMs for animal movement data.

I saw Dom present a great intro to this work at ISEC 2024. The gist is it's a very fast model for fitting HMMs to temporally irregular data (based on maximum likelihood).

Methods in Ecology and Evolution @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social · Jun 16

📖Published📖

FInCH: Fast statistical inference for continuous-time animal movement 🐾

buff.ly

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Reposted by Rachel Mawer

Prof David Sims @thesimslab.bsky.social · Jun 5

NEW in @science.org Global tracking #MarineMegafauna shows <8% of areas used overlap w/ existing MPAs, while >75% of important areas overlapped by threats like #fishing #shipping & ocean warming - 30x30 goal will be insufficient for their conservation www.megamove.org @thembauk.bsky.social

Global tracking of marine megafauna space use reveals how to achieve conservation targets

The recent Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) sets ambitious goals but no clear pathway for how zero loss of important biodiversity areas and halting human-induced extinction of thre...

science.org

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Reposted by Rachel Mawer

Bríd Ní Chonchúir 🦈 @b-r-i-fada-d.bsky.social · Jun 3

Delighted to see the first chapter of my PhD published in the @icesmarine.bsky.social journal of marine science!

This paper discusses developing a holistic understanding of the sensitivity of fish species in our seas and offers practical recommendations for enchanced species mgmt & protection. 🦈🐟

Multiple sensitivity metrics are needed to adequately assess a species’ sensitivity for conservation and management

Abstract. Fish populations are declining globally due to increasing anthropogenic pressures. While research has been carried out to understand the impacts

academic.oup.com

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Reposted by Rachel Mawer

Bryce Stewart @bd-stew.bsky.social · May 21

If you would like to know more about our Pollack Fisheries Industry Science Partnership project then click here: www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/mar... @plymbiomarsci.bsky.social @plymuni.bsky.social @anglingtrust.bsky.social 🐟

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Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · Apr 11

Thanks 😁

Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · Apr 10

Big thanks to all the skippers, anglers and volunteers involved + to my coauthors for helping me get this out there!

Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · Apr 10

... plus we had some brilliant volunteers who went through the photos to mark the presence/absence of each feature, helping us strengthen our analysis 🎉

Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · Apr 10

This work was dependent on citizen science - the photo ID database was thanks to Skatespotter skatespotter.sams.ac.uk (where anyone can submit a photo of a flapper skate they've seen), and investigating the pelvic swelling + scratches came off the back of comments by anglers/and skippers...

SkateSpotter

skatespotter.sams.ac.uk

Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · Apr 10

The study also gave us insight into wound persistence in flapper skate - one bite was observed 102 days apart which is pretty cool! (Might need to zoom into the picture to see it!)

Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · Apr 10

Looking at all features together, the trend for bites and swelling suggests a potential winter-spring mating and egg-laying period for flapper skate. The scratches had the opposite trend, suggesting it might not be a direct result of mating but something else...

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Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · Apr 10

The scratch wounds were more common in males. While it also had the same trend in male and female skate, the seasonal trend was very different to swelling + bites, peaking in Sep/Oct

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Rachel Mawer @rmawer.bsky.social · Apr 10

Bite wounds were also more common in females, but had the same seasonal trend for males and females. Bites were also more likely in winter-spring

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