Bio

David Hyrenbach joined the HPU College of Natural Sciences in January 2008, adding expertise in many fields of study including spatial ecology, the design and effectiveness of marine protected areas, and seabird foraging ecology.

Born in Spain, Dr. Hyrenbach completed his Bachelors of Science at UCSD, his Ph.D. at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and most recently has worked as a research scientist at the Duke University Marine Lab and as a visiting scholar at the University of Washington's School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences.

In 2007, he was awarded a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation to work on the distributions of marine birds, turtles and mammals in the Alboran Sea, Western Mediterranean.

Research at HPU will initially focus on two main questions:

(1) how does oceanographic variability in time and space shape the distribution and community structure of pelagic vertebrates, and (2) how do these habitat associations influence the efficacy of spatially-explicit management strategies for their conservation.

Studies of local marine birds, turtles and mammals will focus on characterizing the response of these marine predators to changes in the local and regional oceanography: studying their movements, quantifying their foraging effort, and monitoring their productivity.

Moreover the conservation applications of this research include identifying potential concentration and foraging areas for the development of spatially-explicit protective measures (e.g., marine protected areas), and documenting potential anthropogenic impacts (e.g., marine debris ingestion and entanglement).