Contact information
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Address: Email: David.Kaplan@ird.fr Tel: +33 (0)4 99 57 32 25 GPG Key: 38C465E3 |
Curriculum vitae
Research statistics and publication lists
Research
My research currently focuses on assessing the effects of different forms of spatial and non-spatial fisheries management on marine populations. Using the lenses of meta-population modeling, experimental marine ecology, species distribution modeling, analysis of fisheries catch-effort data and oceanography, I am looking at how marine spatial management relates to sustainability, conservation and community structure of marine populations with distinct dispersal and reproductive potentials. Recent work has included studies on the implications of offshore marine protected areas for mobile demersal and pelagic species, as well as work on tropical tuna purse seine fisheries in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. I am also studying the effects of oceanographic processes on temporal and spatial patterns of larval settlement.
Selected recent research projects:
- MESCAL: Multiscale connectivity at species and community levels to achieve conservation goals under climate change in the Western Indian Ocean (SIOMPA call; 2025-)
- SAMOS: South African Masters of Ocean Sciences (Erasmus+ CBHE call; 2024-)
- REDUCE: Reducing bycatch of threatened megafauna in the East Central Atlantic (2023-)
- AMPED: Marine protected areas for mobile species (2009-2013)
- COMPO: Connectivity of Marine Populations: Application to the South Lagoon of New Caledonia (2010-2014)
- MORSE: Management of Ocean Resources under Shifting Expectations: Bringing the historical perspective into marine mammal conservation (2011-2015)
- Tropical tuna fisheries and the use of Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) (2012-215)
- Sea turtle nesting site selection and egg survival in the anthropogenized and climate-impacted environment of southern Virginia (2016-2017)
- Building the statistical and experimental framework for parentage-based abundance estimation of Western Atlantic bluefin tuna (2016-2017)
- Spatio-temporal trends in private oyster lease use in the lower Chesapeake Bay (2016-2018)
- CECOFAD & CECOFAD2: Catch, Effort, and eCOsystem impacts of FAD-fishing (2014-2015, 2018-2019)
- ManFAD: Management of FADs in tropical tuna purse seine fisheries (2019-present)
Research around the globe
Below is a map showing my various geographical areas of activity around the globe. For more details, see the interactive version.
Information for prospective students
General information
I regularly accept students at the Masters, PhD and postdoctoral level. Though inquiries are always welcome, before applying to work with me, it is a good idea to take a careful look at my overall research interests and recent publications to see if your interests and abilities match mine and those of my laboratory. Also, consider looking through the websites of the projects that I am participating in and my laboratory’s announcements of available research positions. These often contain information about new research directions for which researchers in my laboratory and I are more likely to be looking for students.
Prospective students should have a strong quantitative background, and be interested in problems relating to dynamics of marine ecosystems, fisheries management and/or marine conservation. If you have any questions, please contact me by email or phone as listed on my homepage.
When applying, please send at least the following four items:
- A letter of motivation
- A detailed CV
- Names and contact information for 3-5 professional references
- Most recent course grades and class rankings
Mobile website
You are on the desktop version of this website. You can visit the mobile version here.
Other websites
- Desktop homepage: Desktop version of this website
- Mobile homepage: Mobile version of this website
- Institutional: My homepage on my laboratory’s website
- MARBEC: My laboratory
- IRD: My institution
- MESCAL: Multiscale connectivity at species and community levels to achieve conservation goals under climate change in the Western Indian Ocean (SIOMPA call; 2025-)
- SAMOS: South African Masters of Ocean Sciences (Erasmus+ CBHE call; 2024-)
- REDUCE: Reducing bycatch of threatened megafauna in the East Central Atlantic (2023-)
- AMPED: Marine protected areas for mobile species (2009-2013)
- COMPO: Connectivity of Marine Populations: Application to the South Lagoon of New Caledonia (2010-2014)
- CECOFAD & CECOFAD2: Catch, Effort, and eCOsystem impacts of FAD-fishing (2014-2015, 2018-2019)
- ICES Journal of Marine Science: Associate editor since 2015
- Aquatic Living Resources: Associate editor since 2016
Random other musings
I am working on several software projects of interest to others, particularly scientists. The software used in these projects is freely available for download. They are listed from newest to oldest.
- starticles - A generic, journal-independent Rmarkdown format for authoring scientific papers and reports
- rticles - Not my project, but I contributed a format for Oxford University Press journals
- knitrdata - R package for making standalone Rmarkdown documents that include data chunks. An instructional video for using the package is available on youtube.
- ConnMatTools - An R package for working with connectivity matrices
- NetCDF extension for Netlogo
- OpenMA - A matlab toolbox for performing Open-boundary Modal Analysis
- HFR_Progs - A matlab toolbox for processing HF radar measurements
- Simple instructions in English for using the Datarmor, HPC cluster of the Ifremer.
- Authoring publications in Rmarkdown - A presentation on how to write publications in Rmarkdown.
- EOFs and Rotated EOFs - Contains code, basic discussion and useful links.
- Discussion of Wind Shear Calculation - Short discussion of how to properly calculate the total wind shear vector.
- Calculating Coherence Significance - A quick note on how to calculate the significance of the coherence between two series with an emphasis on matlab.
- Postgis tricks and tips - Some useful PostgreSQL functions that I have made for working with postgis.
- Making RPMs - Some basic instructions and hints for generating RPMs - packages for installation on a variety of Linux systems. OLD!
- Bike tour of the Netherlands August, 2020 - A map of our 300 km bike tour of the North Holland part of the Netherlands
Random things that bugged me enough to get me to write a web page about them.