Dr Emmanuel Mbaru
Lancaster University
Email: e.mbaru@lancaster.ac.uk
Mbaru is a Research Associate at Lancaster Environment Centre working on climate impacts on fisheries alongside Nick Graham and Christina Hicks. His project will further examine how legal pluralism in fisheries governance affect the implementation of policies and sustainability strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Mbaru obtained his PhD in Marine Science from James Cook University, Australia in 2019. His research focused on the diffusion of escape slot traps, a conservation technology, through networks of coastal fishers in Kenya, and the impacts of this technology innovation on both people (wellbeing) and ecosystems (fisheries functional diversity). Mbaru also works as a senior scientist at the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) and holds an AXA Postdoctoral research fellowship.
Research Interests
Mbaru’s current interests are embedded in the emerging concepts in network science and fisheries ecology to better understand how and why conservation goes to scale. He focuses on interdisciplinary research topics that examine the vulnerability of coastal communities and ecosystems to environmental change.
Selected Publications
- Mbaru EK, Hicks CC, Gurney GG, Cinner JE (2021) Evaluating outcomes of conservation with multidimensional indicators of well‐being. Conservation Biology 35(5): 1417 – 1425.
- Mbaru EK, Graham NAJ, McClanahan TR, Cinner EJ (2019) Functional traits illuminate the selective impacts of different fishing gears on coral reefs. Journal of Applied Ecology 57(2): 241 – 252.
- Mbaru EK, Sigana D, Ruwa RK, Mueni EM, Ndoro CK, Kimani EN, Kaunda-Arara B (2018) Experimental evaluation of influence of FADs on community structure and fisheries in coastal Kenya. Aquatic Living Resources 31: 6 – 18.
- Mbaru EK. & Barnes ML (2017) Key players in conservation diffusion: using social network analysis to identify critical injection points: Biological Conservation 210: 222–232.
- Mbaru EK & McClanahan TR (2013) Escape gaps in African basket traps reduce bycatch while increasing body sizes and incomes in a heavily fished reef lagoon. Fisheries Research 148: 90 – 99.
- Barnes ML, Mbaru EK, Muthiga NA (2019) Information access and knowledge exchange in co-managed coral reef fisheries. Biological Conservation 238: 108198.
- Robinson JPW, Mills DJ, Asiedu GA, Byrd K, del Mar Mancha Cisneros M, Cohen PJ, Fiorella KJ, Graham NAJ, MacNeil MA, Maire E, Mbaru EK, Nico G, Omukoto JO, Simmance F, Hicks CC (2022) Small pelagic fish supply abundant and affordable micronutrients to low-and middle-income countries. Nature Food.