Biography

Dr Rob Williams is a researcher in UBC’s Marine Mammal Research Unit who conducts applied conservation research projects on a number of marine mammal populations around the world.  He completed his Ph.D at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, with an emphasis on cost-effective cetacean research projects, such as small-boat or platform-of-opportunity surveys.  His MSc work (on behavioural responses of killer whales to whalewatching boats) was conducted with MMRU in 1999.  His main geographic areas of interest are the coastal waters of BC and the Southern Ocean. 

Rob’s work addresses two broad themes:  estimating wildlife abundance and distribution; and assessing impacts of human activities on behaviour and energetics of marine mammals.  Prior to re-joining MMRU in 2007, Rob and his colleagues designed (Thomas, Williams and Sandilands 2007) and conducted (Williams and Thomas 2007) systematic surveys to estimate the number of cetaceans found in BC’s Inside Passage waters.  Since then, he has initiated a number of studies to use these data to conduct quantitative assessments of the risk to marine mammal populations of anthropogenic activities, such as bycatch in commercial fisheries, ship strikes, and ingestion of and entanglement in floating marine debris.  In 2008, he and his colleagues started a partnership with Cornell University to measure ambient (anthropogenic) noise in BC coastal waters. 

He has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission since 2001.  Rob reviews for a number of scientific journals, and serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Zoology and Animal Conservation. 

Publications :

1. Articles published or accepted in refereed journals;

Williams, R., Hall, A.J. and Winship, A.W. (2008) Potential limits to anthropogenic mortality of small cetaceans in coastal waters of British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 65(9):1867-1878. [PDF]

Williams, R. and Thomas, L. (2007) Distribution and abundance of marine mammals in the coastal waters of BC, Canada. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management 9(1):  15-28.  [PDF]

Thomas, L., Williams, R. and Sandilands, D. (2007) Designing line transect surveys for complex survey regions. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management 9(1):  1-13. [PDF]

Williams, R., Leaper, R., Zerbini, A. and Hammond, P.S. (2007) Methods for investigating measurement error in cetacean line transect surveys. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 87:  313-320.  [PDF]

Williams, R. and Ashe, E. (2007) Killer whale evasive tactics vary with boat number. Journal of Zoology (London) 272(4):  390-397.  [PDF]

Williams, R. and Crosbie, K. (2007) Antarctic whales and Antarctic tourism. Tourism in Marine Environments (Special Issue on Polar Tourism).  [PDF]

Williams, R. and Lusseau, D. (2006) A killer whale social network is vulnerable to targeted removals. Biology Letters 2(4):  497-500.  [PDF]

Williams, R., Hedley, S. and Hammond, P.S. (2006) Modelling distribution and abundance of Antarctic baleen whales using ships of opportunity.  Ecology and Society 11(1). http://ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art1/

Williams, R., Lusseau, D. and Hammond, P.S. (2006) Estimating relative energetic costs of human disturbance to killer whales (Orcinus orca). Biological Conservation 133(3):  301-311.  doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2006.06.010.  [PDF]

Morton, A. and Williams, R. (2006) Response of Sea Lice infestation on wild Pink and Chum Salmon smolts to arrival of parasitized wild adult salmon. Canadian Field-Naturalist 120(2):  199-204.  [ABSTRACT:  PDF]

Morton, A.M., Routledge, R. and Williams, R. (2005) Temporal patterns of sea louse infestation on wild Pacific salmon in relation to the fallowing of Atlantic salmon farms. North American Journal of Fisheries Management 25: 811-821.  [PDF]

Lusseau, D., Williams, R., Wilson, B., Grellier, K., Barton, T.R., Hammond, P.S. & Thompson, P.M. (2004) Parallel influence of climate on the behaviour of Pacific killer whales and Atlantic bottlenose dolphins. Ecology Letters 7: 1068-1076.  [PDF]

Scheidat, M., Castro, C., Gonzalez, J. and Williams, R. (2004) Behavioural responses of humpback whales to whalewatching boats near Isla de la Plata, Machalilla National Park, Ecuador. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management 6(1): 63-68. [PDF]

Morton, A. and Williams, R. (2003). First report of the sea louse, Lepeophtheirus salmonis, infestation on juvenile Pink Salmon, Oncorhynchus gorbuscha, in nearshore habitat.  Canadian Field-Naturalist 117: 634-641. [ABSTRACT:  morton_williams_2003_CFN.txt]

Williams, R., Bain, D.E., Ford, J.K.B. and Trites, A.W. (2002) Behavioural responses of male killer whales to a ‘leapfrogging’ vessel. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management 4(3): 305-310.  [PDF]

Williams, R., Trites, A.W. and Bain, D.E. (2002) Behavioural responses of killer whales to whale-watching traffic: opportunistic observations and experimental approaches. Journal of Zoology (London) 256: 255-270.  [PDF]

1. Other refereed contributions;

Williams, R. and Donovan, G.  Blue whales. In:  Riffenburgh, B. (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Antarctic, Routledge, New York, 1248 pp.  

Williams, R. and Donovan, G.  Fin whales. In:  Riffenburgh, B. (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Antarctic, Routledge, New York, 1248 pp.  

Williams, R. and Donovan, G.  Sei whales. In:  Riffenburgh, B. (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Antarctic, Routledge, New York, 1248 pp.