Chris Yesson

The seabed is home to a diverse array of marine life.

Much of this life is dependant on the habitats formed by both plants and animals such as seaweeds, corals and sponges. Habitats such as kelp forest and coral reefs are important for people too, benefiting fisheries, tourism, coastal defences, and much more.

However, life on the seabed is impacted by a wide variety of human activities including fishing and climate change. Our understanding of these impacts is limited by our fundamental knowledge of these habitats including their distributions, connections and ecology. 

We need to restore degraded and lost marine habitats, requiring improving methods of restoration and robust monitoring and reporting of both successes and failures.

Surveys

Chris has been working in the UK, Greenland and other areas, using a range of survey techniques, to study and monitor temperate and polar seabed habitats such as kelp forests, seagrass beds and cold-water coral fields. This information helps to map and describe seabed habitats and assess their vulnerability to activities such as trawling. Chris has worked closely with the fishing industry in Greenland to provide vital information towards sustainability assessments. Chris uses a variety of techniques such as towed cameras, drones and environmental DNA to monitor seabed habitats around the UK for coastal habitat restoration projects. 

Projects

• Mapping and monitoring seabed habitats in Greenland
• Coastal habitat restoration & monitoring of seagrass, oysters & saltmarsh in the Greater Thames Estuary, with Transforming the Thames
• Examining the impact of trawling restrictions on the Sussex coast with the Sussex Kelp Recovery Project
• Investigating fisheries bycatch mitigation with Clean Catch UK
• Developing a low-cost towed camera system for deep seabed surveys with the Deep & Cheap project
• Citizen science project to monitor UK kelp habitats with the NHM's underwater forest survey 

Chris is also Course Director of the MSc Wild Animal Biology and MSc Wild Animal Health programmes. Please get in touch if you are interested in the courses.