Malin Pinsky
mpinsky //at// stanford.edu CV Webpages
Williams College, Williamstown, MA. B.A.
Biology and Environmental Studies. 2003.
I am broadly interested in the factors that determine the persistence of populations through time and space, particularly in the face of landscape-scale changes to ecosystems. I use a combination of genetic, geographic information system, and modeling tools to answer these questions.
Effects of fishing on marine connectivity: By reducing the size of fished populations, fishing can theoretically reduce the provision of larvae to downstream populations, thereby fragmenting and isolating the marine landscape. Through a combination of population genetic modeling and research on coral reef fish in the Philippines, we are trying to better understand the conditions under which fishing affects connectivity.
Ancient DNA in northern fur seals: Northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus) were extirpated from the western coast of North America over the past 800 years, surviving in a few rookeries in the Bering Sea. Using ancient DNA from subfossil bones combined with coalescent modeling, I am working with Liz Hadly's lab to understand the effects of this disturbance on the species.
The "last best" for salmon: In the face of increasing urbanization and the threat of climate change, there has been increased interest in identifying rivers throughout the North Pacific that continue to support viable and productive salmon populations. Working with the Wild Salmon Center and State of the Salmon, we compiled and analyzed salmon abundance and life history diversity across the U.S., Canada, Russia, and Japan to help guide future conservation efforts.
Selected Publications:
Pinsky, M. L., H. Montes, Jr., and S. R. Palumbi. 2010. Using isolation-by-distance and effective density to estimate dispersal scales in anemonefish. Evolution 64(9): 2688-2700
Pinsky, M. L., S. Newsome. B.R. Dickerson, Y. Fang, M. van Tuinen, D. Kennett, R. R. Ream, and E. A. Hadly. 2010. Migration, population structure, and resilience to disturbance: using the past to predict the future. Molecular Ecology 19: 2418-2429.
Pinsky, M. L., D. Springmeyer, M. Goslin, and X. Augerot. 2009. Range-wide prioritization of catchments for Pacific salmon conservation. Conservation Biology 23(3): 680-691.