Dr Darren Parsons

Biography

Darren completed a BSc and MSc at the University of Auckland where he studied the movements of snapper within the Goat Island Marine Reserve. Darren then completed a PhD at North Carolina State University where he investigated the indirect effects of recreational fishing on spiny lobster. Since 2006 Darren has been at NIWA, where he has worked on a range of fish ecology and inshore fisheries projects. In 2017 Darren was co-appointed through the University of Aucklands Joint Graduate School in Coastal and Marine Science.

Darrens research interests centre on fish ecology, and understanding how it is modified by human induced stressors such as fishing, land based effects and climate change. Darren is particularly interested in fish life-history, movement, behaviour and personality, and how fisheries select and modify these aspects within fish populations. Darren also has interests in promoting the implementation of Ecosystem Based Fishery Management in New Zealand, which includes the consideration of ecological as well social, cultural and economic values. 

Darren has existing/recent projects investigating: (i) nursery habitat association in juvenile snapper, (ii) the effects of ocean acidification on snapper larvae, (iii) milky-fleshed snapper syndrome in the Hauraki Gulf, (iv) fishery system indicators for the Hauraki Gulf, (v) the age structure of inshore fish populations such as snapper and trevally, and (vi) inshore trawl surveys of the Hauraki Gulf and Bay of Plenty.