Martin Robards

My trustee volunteers, Jenn Marie Anson and Jon Schroder in Glacier Bay, Alaska

I grew up in England where I was always fascinated by nature. I pursued a degree in Marine Biology at Liverpool University and learned to dive, and both these things forever instilled my need to live near the ocean. However, it was love of climbing that brought me to Alaska in 1990.

Here, I fell victim to the old proverb "If you want to travel around the world, leave Alaska to last". I worked as a glacier and mountain guide for a year and a half in the Wrangell St. Elias - a park the size of New England! Subsequently, I returned to marine science, working with USFWS for several years studying seabirds in the Aleutian Islands and northern Gulf of Alaska. I then worked for three years as a consultant, travelling to all corners of Alaska. I also worked in Egypt (reef surveys on the Sinai peninsula) and Tasmania (conservation project on the orange-bellied parrot). In 1995 I returned to Biological Resources Division (formally a part of USFWS), this time to study the fish that seabirds consume.

Pulling in the beach seine in Dutch Harbor, Alaska

I coordinated the nearshore fisheries research of the lower Cook Inlet project using beach seining as a sampling tool. I enrolled in school at Memorial University of Newfoundland (another wonderful coastal area) and am currently finalizing my thesis on Pacific sand lance (the key forage fish in many coastal areas of the North Pacific and certainly the most interesting). I hope to continue pursuing research in high latitudes, following in the footsteps of many predecessors who trod these northern shores.

My interests are the history of high-latitude exploration, woodworking, and wilderness travel.

Publications

Peer-reviewed journal articles:

Robards, M. D., J. F. Piatt, and K. D. Wohl. 1995. Increasing frequency of plastic particle ingestion by seabirds in the subarctic North Pacific. Marine Pollution Bulletin 30: 151-157.

Robards, M. D., J. F. Piatt, and G. A. Rose. 1999. Maturation, Fecundity, and Intertidal Spawning of Pacific Sand Lance (Ammodytes hexapterus) in the Northern Gulf of Alaska. Journal of Fish Biology 54: 1050-1068.

Robards, M. D., J. F. Piatt, A. B. Kettle, and A. A. Abookire. 2000. Temporal and geographic variation in fish communities of Lower Cook Inlet, Alaska. Fishery Bulletin 98: xx-xx.

Robards, M. D., H. G. Gilchrist, and K. Allard. In Press. Breeding Atlantic puffins and other bird species of Coburg Island, Northwest Territories. Canadian Field Naturalist.

Robards, M. D., J. A. Anthony, G. A. Rose, and J. F. Piatt. In Press. Changes in proximate composition and somatic energy content for Pacific sand lance (Ammodytes hexapterus) relative to maturity, season, and location. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology.

Book chapters:

Robards, M. D., P. J. Gould, and J. F. Piatt. 1997. The highest global concentrations and increased abundance of oceanic plastic debris in the North Pacific: Evidence from seabirds. Pages 71-80 in Marine Debris, Sources, Impacts, Solutions. J. M. Coe and D. B. Rogers, editors. Springer Verlag.

Robards, M. D., and J. F. Piatt. In Press. Biology of the genus Ammodytes, the sand lances. U.S. Forest Service Technical Report Series.

The following manuscripts are submitted and in review at peer-reviewed journals:

Robards, M. D., G. A. Rose, and J. F. Piatt. Somatic growth and otolith development of Pacific sand lance (Ammodytes hexapterus) under different oceanographic regimes. Fisheries Oceanography.

Abookire, A. A., J. F. Piatt, and M. D. Robards. The influence of stratification and small-scale thermohaline differences on nearshore fish distributions in an Alaskan estuary. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.

Ballard, W. B., M. A. Cronin, M. D. Robards, L. E. Noel, E. Follman, and D. G. Ritter. Body sizes, ages, reproductive status, and sex ratios of arctic foxes in the Prudhoe Bay oil field, Alaska. Canadian Field Naturalist.

Ballard, W. B., M. A. Cronin, M. D. Robards, L. E. Noel, and D. G. Ritter. Incidence of exposure of arctic foxes in the Prudhoe Bay oil field to rabies and canine distemper. Journal of Wildlife Research.

Ballard, W. B., M. A. Cronin, M. D. Robards, W. A. Stubblefield, and L. E. Noel. Heavy metal concentrations of arctic foxes in the Prudhoe Bay oil field, Alaska. Journal of Wildlife Diseases.