Bio
I pursued a BSc in Biology at the University of Oviedo in Spain. Then, I taught biology for several years at the State University of Haiti (UEH), before I went to Barbados to pursue an MSc at UWI (CERMES). During my MSc, I became particularly interested in reef fish ecology and my MSc thesis focused on examining reef fish larval dynamics in a marine reserve network in the island of St Lucia. I continued that line of research during my PhD at McGill University in Canada by examining the dynamics of reef fish settlement along the west coast of Barbados using McGill’s Bellairs Research Institute as research station.
After my PhD, I took a two-year break from academia and worked as a technical advisor to the Fisheries Department of the Ministry of Agriculture of Haiti in projects aimed at improving artisanal fisheries in Haiti. This experience steered my interest toward issues more directly associated with the management of reef fisheries in developing countries.
I came back to UWI (and Barbados) as a post-doctoral fellow for the Future of Reefs in a Changing Environment (FORCE) project with the task of helping develop indicators for coral reef management; I joined the BCS as lecturer in ecology one year after.
Qualifications
B.Sc., University of Oviedo (Spain), 1995
M.Sc., The University of the West Indies (Cave Hill, Barbados), 2000
Ph.D., McGill University (Canada), 2008
Research Areas
Settlement and early post-settlement processes in reef fishes; Threats to coral reefs; Artisanal tropical fisheries; Ecological indicators; Biodiversity conservation; Parrotfish ecology; Quantitative methods in ecology.
My most recent graduate students have been working on very different topics, including investigating patterns of habitat use by cleaning gobies, documenting population dynamics of excavating sponges on Barbados’ coral reefs, and assessing the diversity of brachyuran crabs in Barbados.
I am also currently working on a project on the artisanal fishery in Haiti with the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development.
Teaching Areas
Population Ecology; Community Ecology; Coral Reef Ecology; Island Biogeography; Biostatistics
Select Publications
Vallès, H., Miller, S. and H. A. Oxenford. 2020. The effect of microhabitat patch size on settlement differs among co-occurring coral reef fishes. Coral Reefs. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-020-01895-w
Monnereau, I., R. Mahon, P. McConney, L. Nurse. R. Turner and H. Vallès. 2017. The impacts of methodological choices on the outcome of climate change vulnerability assessments: an example from the global fisheries sector. Fish and Fisheries. 00:1-15. doi:10.1111/faf.12299
Vallès, H., and H. A. Oxenford. 2015. The utility of simple fish community metrics for evaluating the relative influence of fishing vs. other environmental drivers on Caribbean reef fish communities. Fish and Fisheries 16:649-667.
Vallès, H., and H. A. Oxenford. 2014. Parrotfish size: a simple yet useful alternative indicator of fishing effects on Caribbean reefs? PLoS One 9(1): e86291.
Vallès, H., D. L. Kramer, and W. Hunte. 2008. Temporal and spatial patterns in the recruitment of coral-reef fishes in Barbados. Marine Ecology Progress Series 363:257-272
Additional Info
Some of my work has caught the attention of Hakai Magazine
I also currently sit on the Scientific Council of the Caribaea Initiative and on the Board of Directors of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute (GCFI)