Robin Waples

Affiliate Faculty, SAFS
robinw3@uw.edu
206-694-9701

Robin Waples CV

 

 

I initially got a liberal arts degree but became interested in marine biology after spending most of a decade in and under tropical seas. After 35+ years, I retired from NOAA Fisheries, Seattle, in Fall 2022. For almost as long, I have also been an Affiliate Professor at UW’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, and that is now my academic home.

Research interests have ranged from ichthyology, identification of cryptic species, population and conservation genetics, genetic mixture analysis, endangered species, climate change, life-history evolution, and the genetic consequences of artificial propagation. Most of my research has involved salmon or marine fish, but I have also published on cetaceans, walrus, red wolves and black bears, birds, and plants.

Broadly speaking, I use evolutionary and ecological principles to tackle complex problems involving applied conservation and management of species in the wild. Recuring themes have included: adapting evolutionary theory to account for life histories of real species; developing and applying scientifically-based criteria for conserving at-risk species; disentangling population genetic structure in high gene-flow species; understanding and estimating effective population size in natural populations; and evaluating adaptive responses by species to anthropogenic changes to their ecosystems.

For over a decade, I led a group charged with developing the scientific basis for listing determinations and recovery planning for Pacific salmon under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Subsequently, I spent 8 years on one of COSEWIC’s Species Specialist Committees, which provide the scientific basis for listing determinations under Canada’s Species at Risk Act.

Recent work has focused on evolutionary demography in age-structured species, especially the distribution of variation in offspring number, which is the driver of two of the four evolutionary forces: genetic drift and natural selection.

Professional Activities

  • Chair, NMFS Biological Review Teams for Endangered Species Act (ESA) evaluations, 1990-2003
  • Scientific Lead, ESA recovery planning for West Coast salmon, 1999-2003
    NMFS Biological Review Teams for green sea turtles (2012-2014); SE Alaska Herring (2008, 2013); Puget Sound marine fish (2000, 2005, 2008, 2016); Puget Sound killer whales (2001-02; 2004)
  • Marine Fishes Specialist Committee, Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), 2001–2009
  • Independent Scientific Panels to review scientific whaling: Western North Pacific (Yokohama, Japan, 2009); Iceland (Reykjavik, 2013); Antarctica (Tokyo, Japan, 2014 & 2015)
  • IUCN Species Specialist Group for salmon, 2002–; IUCN Conservation Genetics SG 2014-
    Chair, Technical Committee, Western Alaska Salmon Stock Identification Program, 2008-2013
  • Steering Committee, Fishery-independent estimate of spawning biomass of southern Bluefin tuna through identification of close kin using genetic markers. CSIRO, Australia, 2008-2012
  • Steering Committee, FishPopTrace, a large, EU-funded study that used genomics techniques to trace fish products to population of origin, 2007-2012.
  • Chair, Review Oversight Committee, FISHES, a large, interdisciplinary project funded by GenomeQuébec, 2019-2024.

Synergistic Activities

  • Director, NWFSC Internal Grants Program, 2000–2015 (provided over $2.4M in competitive seed-money grants, esp. for career development of junior scientists)
  • Chair (with Jeff Hutchings of Dalhousie University), Workgroup on Redflags and Extinction Risk, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA 2010-2013
  • Chair (with Daniel Schindler of U. Washington), Workgroup on Pacific Salmon and Climate Change, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA 2007-2010
  • Instructor, Short Courses in Conservation Genetics Data Analysis (Denmark 2003; Italy 2005; France 2006; Portugal 2006-2008; Montana USA 2007-2023) – these courses target advanced graduate students and postdocs and include lectures and hands-on computer data analysis
  • Affiliate Professor, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, U. Washington, 1991- present
  • Visiting scientist: Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France (2003-2004); U. Montana (2004); UC Berkeley (2004); CSIRO, Hobart, Tasmania (2017)

Honors and Awards

  • Molecular Ecology Prize 2018
  • Barrett-Hamilton Memorial Lecture, University of Manitoba, January 2017
  • JW Jones Memorial Lecture, Fisheries Society of the British Isles, July 2001 and July 2016
  • Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
  • Elected to the American Fisheries Society, Genetics Section Hall of Excellence, 2015
  • Elected to Washington State Academy of Sciences, 2014
  • Elected President, American Genetic Association, 2014 term
  • Society for Conservation Biology, Edward T. LaRoe III Memorial Award, 2013
  • American Fisheries Society, William Ricker Fishery Conservation Award, 2008
  • NOAA Distinguished Career Award, 2008
  • Department of Commerce Silver Medal, 1999

Some Recent Publications

  • Waples, R.S. 2024. Practical application of the linkage disequilibrium method for estimating contemporary effective population size: a review. Molecular Ecology Resources 24:e13879.
  • Allendorf, F.W., Ryman, N. and Waples, R.S., 2023. In Memoriam: Fred M. Utter, a founder of fisheries genetics. Journal of Heredity, p.esad028.
    Gargiulo, R., Waples, R.S., Grow, A., Shefferson, R., Viruel, J., Fay, M. and Kull, T. 2023.
  • Effective population size in partially clonal plants is not predicted by the number of genetic individuals. Evolutionary Applications 16:750-766.
  • Reed, TE, ME Visser, and RS Waples. 2023. The opportunity for selection: an important but slippery concept in ecology and evolution. Journal of Animal Ecology 92:7-15.
  • Waples, R.S. 2023. Robustness of Hill’s overlapping-generation method for calculating Ne to extreme patterns of reproductive success. Heredity 131(2):170-177.
  • Waples, RS. 2023. Partitioning variance in reproductive success, within years and across lifetimes. Ecology and Evolution 13, e10647.
  • Waples, RS, and TE Reed. 2023. Null models for the Opportunity for Selection. American Naturalist 201:779-793.
  • Ardren, WR, GR Jordan, PW DeHaan, and RS Waples. 2022. Demographic and evolutionary history of pallid and shovelnose sturgeon in the Upper Missouri River. Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management 13(1):124-143.
  • Waples, RS. 2022. THEWEIGHT: A simple and flexible algorithm for simulating non-ideal, age-structured populations. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 13:2030-2041.
  • Waples, RS. 2022. What is Ne, anyway? Journal of Heredity 113:371-379.
  • Waples, RS, and P Feutry. 2022. Close-kin methods to estimate census size and effective population size. Fish and Fisheries 23:273-293.
  • Waples, RS, and 19 coauthors. 2022. Implications of large-effect loci for conservation: a review and case study with Pacific salmon. Journal of Heredity 113:121-144.
  • Waples, R.S., Waples, R.K., and Ward, E.J., 2022. Pseudoreplication in genomics-scale datasets. Molecular Ecology Resources 22:503-518.
  • Luikart, G., T. Antao, B.K. Hand, C.C. Muhlfeld, M.C. Boyer, T. Cosart, B. Trethewey, R. Al-Chockhachy, R.S. Waples. 2021. Detecting population declines via estimating the effective number of breeders (Nb). Molecular Ecology Resources 21:379-393.
  • Olah G, Stojanovic D, Webb M, Waples RS, Heinsohn R. 2021. Comparison of three techniques for genetic estimation of effective population size in a critically endangered parrot. Animal Conservation 24:491-498.
  • Schweizer, R.M., Saarman, N., Ramstad, K.M., Forester, B.R., Kelley, J.L., Hand, B.K., Malison, R.L., Ackiss, A.S., Watsa, M., Nelson, T.C., Beja-Pereira, A., Waples, R.S., Funk, W.C., and Luikart, G. 2021. Big data in conservation genomics: boosting skills, hedging bets, and staying current in the field. Journal of Heredity 112:313-327.
  • Waples, RS. 2021. Relative precision of the sibship and LD methods for estimating effective population size with genomics-scale datasets. Journal of Heredity 112:535:539.
  • Antao T, T Cosart, B Trethewey, RS Waples, M Ackerman, G Luikart, and BK Hand. 2020.
  • AgeStrucNb: software for simulating and detecting changes in the effective number of breeders (Nb). Journal of Heredity 111:491-497.
  • Waples, R.S. 2020. An estimator of the Opportunity for Selection that is independent of mean fitness. Evolution 74:1942-1953.
  • Waples, RS. 2020. Serendipity and me. ICES J. Mar. Sci. 77:1658-1665.
  • Waples RS, KA Naish, CR Primmer. 2020. Conservation and management of salmon in the age of genomics. Annual Review of Animal Biosciences 8:117-143.

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