Credit: Euan Harvey
“I do research whenever I get the opportunity,” says Marine Ecologist Euan Harvey, who spends most of his time in teaching roles at the University of Western Australia (UWA), teaching undergraduates and heading the marine science honours program.
When he does find time, Harvey focuses his study on fish in general, preferring not to dedicate himself to a specific species, but rather patterns of fish. “[I am] trying to understand how fish assemblies respond to protected areas,” he explained, focusing on how fish numbers vary depending on whether they are living in a marine park (protected ocean space) or not.
Harvey hails from New Zealand, where he completed his Bachelor of Parks and Recreation Management at Lincoln University near Christchurch and his Post Graduate Diploma and PhD at Otago University at Dunedin. “I set out to look at spatial and temporal variability in reef fish assembly,” he says, but ended up writing his PhD till 1998 on an underwater stereo video, which he invented as part of his thesis.
Harvey was inspired by his work volunteering on surveying boats, where he spotted the biases and limitations of techniques like trawling. “There are a whole heap of techniques out there that are destructive,” he says, “If you are doing destructive sampling, you can alter the habitat you’re sampling.”
Harvey’s underwater video camera removes some of the obvious biases, such as scientists accidentally altering the population of a fish by over-sampling as well as misidentification by divers. It also allows surveying of areas much deeper than divers are able to swim.
Being able to film the fish in their natural habitats and watch the footage back has also meant Harvey – along with his colleges – has been able to uncover underwater mysteries that might otherwise have been left unsolved. These include discovering the purpose of sliming by hagfish as well as studying Bluefin Tuna off Port Lincoln, New Zealand and studying groperfish in Oman.
Presently, Harvey is back working on the PhD he never finished, which he plans to submit by February. He is studying fish assemblies at Milford’s Sound on New Zealand's South Island, which has been a protected marine park since 1994. He hopes to understand how the populations of fish change over time in protected areas, which will assist marine observatories. Following that, Harvey plans to further develop his underwater video camera. “We’ve currently got a ... grant to look at whether we can use computer vision to recognise fish in the video imagery and measure their lengths,” he says.
But in the meantime, he’ll continue teaching the younger generation about marine biology, which he thinks is probably the most important aspect of his job.
