Tim Gordon
PhD Student
Hatherly B11
Hatherly Building, University of Exeter, Prince of Wales Road, Exeter, EX4 4PS, UK
Overview
I am a marine biologist studying human impacts on natural acoustics in the ocean. Sound travels far and fast underwater, and many marine organisms communicate, navigate, and sense their environment by listening. Today, the natural sounds of marine ecosystems are being altered by climate change and drowned out by human noise pollution; my research aims to understand more about the likely impacts of these changes and what we can do about them. My work focuses mainly on coral reef ecosystems, combining fieldwork with laboratory experiments and computational analysis of sound recordings.
"Climate Change: Tales from the front line" - click here to watch my recent presentation at the 2018 World Ocean Summit, in Cancun, Mexico
"Helping Nemo find home" - click here to watch my Three Minute Thesis, explaining my research on coral reef soundscapes in a warming world
Broad research specialisms
Marine biology
Bioacoustics
Climate change
Qualifications
BA Natural Sciences (Zoology) – University of Cambridge, 2012–2015
MRes Ecology, Evolution & Conservation – Imperial College London, 2015–2016
Research
Research projects
Project Title: Assessing and managing anthropogenic impacts on marine acoustic ecology
Supervisors:
Dr Steve Simpson, University of Exeter
Dr Rod Wilson, University of Exeter
Professor Andy Radford, University of Bristol
Dr Nathan Merchant, Cefas
Dr Mark Meekan, Australian Institute of Marine Science
Funding Body:
NERC GW4+ DTP, with additional funding from the Australian Institute of Marine Science
Project Description:
Sound can travel for thousands of miles underwater, and plays a vital role in many marine ecosystems. Fish use sound to communicate, navigate, defend territories, find food, choose a mate and gain information about their surrounding environment. Recently, anthropogenic climate change has dramatically altered the soundscape of marine ecosystems, and noise pollution from shipping, small boats, construction and industry threatens to drown out the natural sounds of the ocean. This jeopardises marine life all over the world. My research addresses the likely impact of these acoustic changes, and how best to manage them.
Publications
2019
Acoustic enrichment can enhance fish community development on degraded coral reef habitat
TAC Gordon, AN Radford, IK Davidson, K Barnes, K McCloskey, SL Nedelec, MG Meekan, MI McCormick, SD Simpson
Nature Communications 10, 5414.
A simple model predicts how warming simplifies food webs
EJ O’Gorman, OL Petchey, KJ Faulkner, B Gallo, TAC Gordon, J Neto-Cerejeira, JS Ólafsson, DE Pichler, MSA Thompson, G Woodward
Nature Climate Change 9, 611-616.
Coral reef monitoring, reef assessment technologies and ecosystem-based management
DO Obura, W Appeltans, N Amornthammarong, G Aeby, NJ Bax, J Bishop, RE Brainard, S Chan, P Fletcher, TAC Gordon, L Gramer, M Gudka, J Halas, J Hendee, G Hodgson, D Huang, M Jankulak, A Jones, T Kimura, J Levy, P Miloslavich, LM Chou, FE Muller-Karger, K Osuka, S Simpson, K Tun, S Wongbusarakum
Frontiers in Marine Science 6, 580
Causes and consequences of intraspecific variation in animal responses to anthropogenic noise
HR Harding, TAC Gordon, E Eastcott, SD Simpson, AN Radford
Behavioral Ecology, arz114
In a noisy world, some animals are more equal than others: a response to comments on Harding et al.
AN Radford, HR Harding, TAC Gordon, SD Simpson
Behavioral Ecology, arz171
2018
Habitat degradation negatively affects auditory settlement behavior of coral reef fishes
TAC Gordon, HR Harding, KE Wong, ND Merchant, MG Meekan, MI McCormick, AN Radford, SD Simpson
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, 5193-5198.
Fishes in a changing world: learning from the past to promote sustainability of fish populations
TAC Gordon, HR Harding, FK Clever, IK Davidson, W Davison, DW Montgomery, RC Weatherhead, FM Windsor, JD Armstrong, A Bardonnet, E Bergman, JR Britton, IM Côté, D D'Agostino, LA Greenberg, AR Harborne, KK Kahilainen, NB Metcalfe, SC Mills, NJ Milner, FH Mittermayer, L Montorio, SL Nedelec, JM Prokkola, LA Rutterford, AGV Salvanes, SD Simpson, A Vainikka, JK Pinnegar, EM Santos
Journal of Fish Biology 92, 804-827.
Changes in feeding selectivity of freshwater invertebrates across a natural thermal gradient
TAC Gordon, J Neto-Cerejeira, PC Furey, EJ O’Gorman
Current Zoology 64, 231-242.
Fish in habitats with higher motorboat disturbance show reduced sensitivity to motorboat noise
HR Harding, TAC Gordon, RE Hsuan, ACE Mackaness, AN Radford, SD Simpson
Biology Letters 14, 20180441.
2016
Predation of freshwater gastropods (Viviparus viviparus) by brown rats (Rattus norvegicus)
TAC Gordon, EL Wilding, DC Aldridge
Journal of Molluscan Studies 82, 457-463.
2015
TAC Gordon, B Cowburn, RD Sluka
Coral Reefs 34, 13-16.
Publications
Key publications | Publications by category | Publications by year