Steve Gaines

About

Steven Gaines is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on marine ecology and conservation, sustainable fisheries, the design of marine reserves, and the impact of climate change on ocean ecosystems. He has served as director of the UC Santa Barbara Marine Science Institute, as well as acting Dean of Science and acting Vice Chancellor for Research at UCSB. Gaines currently serves as a strategic advisor for the Environmental Markets Lab (emLab), which advances economic research to deliver practical solutions for people and the planet.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Environmental science
• Biology
• Fishery
• Geography
• Ecology
• Environmental resource management
• Economics
• Business
• Computer Science

Selected publications

• Protecting the global ocean for biodiversity, food and climate

  Nature · 2021 · 750 citations

  DOI

• Ecological impacts of human‐induced animal behaviour change

  Ecology Letters · 2020-07-24 · 269 citations

  review

  A growing body of literature has documented myriad effects of human activities on animal behaviour, yet the ultimate ecological consequences of these behavioural shifts remain largely uninvestigated. While it is understood that, in the absence of humans, variation in animal behaviour can have cascading effects on species interactions, community structure and ecosystem function, we know little about whether the type or magnitude of human-induced behavioural shifts translate into detectable ecolog…

  PublisherDOI

• Let more big fish sink: Fisheries prevent blue carbon sequestration—half in unprofitable areas

  Science Advances · 2020-10-28 · 143 citations

  articleOpen access

  emissions by burning less fuel and reactivating a natural carbon pump through the rebuilding of fish stocks and the increase of carcasses deadfall.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cold range edges of marine fishes track climate change better than warm edges

  Global Change Biology · 2020 · 112 citations

  Species around the world are shifting their ranges in response to climate change. To make robust predictions about climate-related colonizations and extinctions, it is vital to understand the dynamics of range edges. This study is among the first to examine annual dynamics of cold and warm range edges, as most global change studies average observational data over space or over time. We analyzed annual range edge dynamics of marine fishes-both at the individual species level and pooled into cold-…

  DOI

• Assessing the population‐level conservation effects of marine protected areas

  Conservation Biology · 2021 · 58 citations

  Marine protected areas (MPAs) cover 3-7% of the world's ocean, and international organizations call for 30% coverage by 2030. Although numerous studies show that MPAs produce conservation benefits inside their borders, many MPAs are also justified on the grounds that they confer conservation benefits to the connected populations that span beyond their borders. A network of MPAs covering roughly 20% of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary was established in 2003, with a goal of providing…

  DOI

Recent grants

• U.S.-Mexico Dissertation Enhancement: Marine Population Connectivity Across the U.S./Mexican Border: A Genetic Approach to Dispersal Dynamics in Kelp Bass

  NSF · $26k · 2004–2007

Frequent coauthors

• Benjamin S. Halpern

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  58 shared

• Robert R. Warner

  45 shared

• Christopher Costello

  University of British Columbia

  44 shared

• Jane Lubchenco

  39 shared

• Sarah E. Lester

  Florida State University

  34 shared

• Bruce A. Menge

  Oregon State University

  28 shared

• Elizabeth M. P. Madin

  University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

  24 shared

• Mark D. Bertness

  Brown University

  24 shared

Labs

• Gaines LabPI

Education

• Ph.D., Zoology

  Oregon State University

  1982

• B.Sc., Biology

  University of California Irvine

  1977

Similar researchers at University of California, Santa Barbara

• Sally MacIntyreh-88
• Arturo Kellerh-86
• Mateo Robbinsh-71