David Johns
- Head of the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey
David is Head of the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey and specialises (>25 years) in plankton macroecology, long-term dataset analysis and para-taxonomy. He has published research papers (70+, h-index 38) on plankton and hydro-climatic interactions, invasive species and plankton – higher trophic level interactions, and has extensive experience in producing scientific reports for Governmental bodies, NGO’s and commercial companies. He is currently involved with a number of EU H2020 programs, including AtlantECO and Mission Atlantic. David is the MBA PI for NERC AtlantiS and a number of US projects.
David is the current Chair of Northeast Atlantic Marine Biological Analytical Quality Control Scheme (NMBAQC), a scheme that promotes best practice and QA/QC guidelines in marine biological monitoring, and he instigated a zooplankton component, led by his team. He is a member of the Healthy and Biologically Diverse Seas Evidence Group (HBDSEG), a DEFRA-led UK Marine Monitoring and Assessment Strategy, as Chair of NMBAQC, and as part of the Pelagic expert sub-group. His recent work has focused on the production of ‘Indicators’ for the UK Marine Strategy, and he leads the MBA involvement on the Defra funded Natural Capital Ecosystem Assessment work. David is also actively involved in research with collaborators from the US and EU, and acts as the main point of contact for external researchers who wish to use Continuous Plankton Recorder data. He is a member of the MBA Management Executive Team, and is the Director of Research Facilities at the MBA.