Tom Okey

Thomas Anthony Okey (born 1964) is an American marine ecologist and ocean conservationist known for his contributions to the understanding of coastal and ocean ecosystems and how to conserve and protect them from local, regional, and global pressures including climate change, pollution, overexploitation, and biodiversity loss. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria, an Associate Faculty member at Royal Roads University, Director and First Nations Coordinator of the Broughton Aquaculture Transition Initiative, Strategic Advisor at Ocean Diagnostics Inc., and Principal of Ocean Integrity Research. 
== Empirical and theoretical contributions ==
Okey's early work revealed how biological communities are organized simultaneously by equilibrium forces such as competition and predation and non-equilibrium forces such as physical disturbances, providing a novel and unified explanation for biodiversity as well as valuable insights into effective conservation strategies.. This emerged from his original submarine canyon research. His 'Functional Interface Hypothesis', which relates to the niche partitioning theory of limiting similarities, explains how and why human modifications of the earth's physical and chemical environments can cause disproportionately large changes in biological communities, such as non-linear degradation, collapses, and tipping points in ecological systems, including tipping points in the climate system. 
== Understanding climate change impacts ==
Okey has addressed a broad array of coastal ocean conservation challenges through a variety of roles, strategies, policy development, and leadership by taking integrative appraoches to each complex social-ecological system. After co-founding the first marine climate impacts research group in Australia in 2005Hobday, A.J.; Okey, T.A.; Poloczanska, E.S.; Kunz, T.J. and Richardson, A.J. (September 2006). "Impacts of cliamate change on Australian marine life". Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. Three Part Report to the Australian Greenhouse Office, Canberra, Australia, his Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation was focused on further advancing the understanding of marine climate change impacts in marine ecosystemsPoloczanska, E.S.; Babcock, R.C.; Butler, A.; Hobday, A.J.; Hoegh-Guldberg, O.; Kunz, T.J.; Matear, R., Milton, D.; Okey, T.A.; Richardson, A.J. (2007). "Climate change and Australian marine life". Oceanography and marine biology. 45: 407, and his work as a National Geographic Explorer focused on school-classroom implementation of the Local Environmental Observer (LEO) Network in Canada, which enables anyone to document effects of climate change or other environmental changes. He was a co-applicant of the OceanCanada Partnership, serving on its Pacific Working Group to link his work assessing the status and health of Canada’s Pacific marine ecosystems in the context of climate change.
== Advancing knowledge synthesis ==
Related to his contributions to understanding how biological communities respond to climate change and other human-caused stressors, Okey is known internationally for his collaborative analytical approaches to ecosystem knowledge synthesis, including the development of highly articulated and whole fishery-ecosystem (Ecopath/Ecosim/Ecospace) models in various Pacific and Atlantic ecosystems inclusive of benthic-pelagic coupling and all relevant sub-webs. Examples range from Prince William Sound, AlaskaOkey, T.A.; Pauly, D. (1999). "A mass-balanced model of trophic flows in Prince William Sound: de-compartmentalizing ecosystem knowledge". Ecosystem approaches for fisheries management 16: 621-635.Okey, T.A.; Wright, B.A. (2004). "Toward ecosystem-based extraction policies for Prince William Sound, Alaska: Integrating conflicting objectives and rebuilding pinnipeds". Bulletin of Marine Science 74 (3): 727-747. to a Galapagos reef system to the West Florida Shelf and several other systems. He led a National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis working group on the social-ecological health and futures of the North Pacific Ocean relating to climate, fisheries, and pollution based in part on an updated version of his first and seminal Ecopath model of Prince William Sound, for which he coordinated the original collaborative construction in 1999 to understand impacts of the Exxon Valdez oil spillOkey, T.A.; D. Pauly, Eds. (1999). "A Trophic Mass-Balance Model of Alaska’s Prince William Sound Ecosystem, for the Post-Spill Period 1994-1996, Second Edition". Fisheries Centre Research Report 7 (4), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 137 p..
== Catalizing change and discovery ==
Okey developed and helped introduce the concept of Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management in 1996; helped design and draft the California Marine Life Management Act of 1999; convened the first ever Scientific Advisory Panel on Marine Protected Areas in 1997Murray, S. N.; Ambrose, R. F.; Bohnsack, J. A.; and 16 others (November 1999) "No-take reserve networks: sustaining fishery populations and marine ecosystems." Fisheries 24(11): 11-25. doi:10.1577/1548-8446(1999)024<0011:NRN>2.0.CO;2, which led to the Marine Life Protection Act; convened and led a U.S. national working group on Essential Fish Habitat in in 1995; developed the first and most robust Keystoneness and Interaction Strength Indices for whole biological communities in 2004; led the first mapping of the vulnerability of Canada’s Pacific marine ecosystems to climate change in 2015; and convened many collaborative workshops and symposia as well as international conferences, some through PICES (North Pacific Marine Science Organization) and the IOC (International Oceanographic Commission). Okey's work and discoveries have led to ever-broadening literatures in all these topics and others such as the ecology of submarine canyons, trophodynamic food web-fishery ecosystem modelling around the world, the ecology of rhodolith beds in the Gulf of California, and basking shark and prickly shark studies in Monterey Bay, California.
== Promoting accessibility of discovery ==
Like classical naturalists, Okey emphasizes to students that the liklihood of witnessing ecological changes, and even discovering novel changes, is simply a function of time spent observing or measuring aspects of nature. To further increase the accessibility of participation in discovery, his work also emphasizes democratization of the process of documenting ecological change, such as with the LEO Network. Examples of his own observations include freshwater mussel mortality in northern New York due to acid rainOkey, T. (15 October 1984). "Apparent native freshwater mussel mortality event". LEO Network (leonetwork.org), Accessed 26 February 2022, the poleward expansion of subtropical fish into central CaliforniaOkey, T.A. (26 August 2019). "Blacksmith (Chromis punctipinnis) Newly Abundant in Central California". LEO Network (leonetwork.org). Accessed 27 February 2022., the return of basking sharks to Monterey Bay, CaliforniaOkey, T.A. (15 January 1990). "Basking Sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) Return to Monterey Bay". LEO Network (leonetwork.org). Accessed 27 February 2022., the first observations of prickly sharks in the Monterey Submarine CanyonOkey, T.A.. (15 November 1988). "Prickly sharks (Echinorhinus cookei) observed in the shallow head of Monterey Submarine Canyon". LEO Network (leonetwork.org). Accessed 3 March 2022., the re-occupation of sea otters into their forrmer range in British ColumbiaOkey, T.A.; Okey-Dobie, P.; Okolowicz, T. (7 April 2018). "Bivalves recently cracked by sea otters (Enhydra lutris) indicating re-occupation". LEO Network (leonetwork.org). Accessed 27 February 2022., and observations of sea level rise on the east and west coasts of North AmericaOkey, T.A. (10 April 2020). "Evidence of Forest Erosion by Sea Level Rise". LEO Network (leonetwork.org). Accessed 27 February 2022Okey, T.A.; Okolowicz, T. (24 March 2019). "Intrusion of Beach Stones and Saltwater into the Coastal Forest". LEO Network (leonetwork.org). Accessed 27 February 2022.Okey, T.A. (10 July 2016). "Live Oaks (Quercus virginiana) Stranded and Killed by Shoreline Erosion". LEO Network (leonetwork.org). Accessed 27 February 2022.. He emphasizes that you never know what you will find or what will happen when exploring and being present, such as when a volcano, Macdonald seamount, erupted directly beneath his research vessel, the RV Mellville of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in the South PacificSullivan, W. (14 October 1987). "Underwater Volcano Erupts, Shaking Ship of Researchers". New York Times, Accessed 26 February 2022Scott, J. (15 October 1987). "Research Ship Rocked by Undersea Volcano". Los Angeles Times, Accessed 26 February 2022.
== Braiding Indigenous knowledge and Western science ==
As the Director and First Nations Coordinator of the Broughton Aquaculture Transition Initiative, he designed and is currently coordinating and implementing an Integrated Ecosystem Assessment of the Broughton Area within Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw territories in a way that features the co-production, or braiding, of Indigenous knowledge and Western quantitative science. The goal is recovery of wild Pacific salmon populaitons, other valued species, and the whole ecosystem. 
== Prioritizing climate solutions ==
Okey has taken the position that humanity's top priority is to accellerate societal transitions towards emissions reductions and carbon sequestration through a combination of biodiversity conservation and technology development, and to accellerate shifts in global economic/financial systems to this end for the prosperity of all peopleOkey, T.A.; U.R. Sumaila; D. Zeller (2004). "The dynamic steady state economy". Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 2 (8): 401.. He joined 296 other experts to urge the World Trade Organization to ban harmful fisheries subsidies. He has argued for improved democratic represenation in natural resources conservation and managemnet and for addressing the problem of human motivation, in addition to contributing newspaper editorials on climate change solutionsOkey, T. (4 April 2015). "The warm ‘blob’ in Canada’s Pacific Ocean". Times Colonist.
Category:1964 births
Category:American marine biologists
Category:American conservationists
Category:People from Rochester, New York