The Nature Conservancy. Protecting nature. Preserving life.™

Sheila Walsh

Senior Scientist, Sustainability Science

Contact Information

E-mail: swalsh@tnc.org

Brief Biography

Sheila Walsh is a senior scientist with The Nature Conservancy's Sustainability Science Program. Sheila's research focuses on how ecosystems and economies are interrelated and how to improve environmental decision making. The results of Sheila's research supports the Conservancy's mission by helping to identify and test conservation strategies that benefit both people and nature.

Currently, Sheila is developing methods to incorporate the value of nature into business decision making through a collaboration with The Dow Chemical Company and Foundation. Sheila is also investigating how to align marine management institutions, from local fishing cooperatives to national policies, with key ecological and economic factors in Mexico.

Sheila has previously conducted research on marine ecology, conservation and economic development issues in Kiribati, Mexico, Belize, and the USA. In addition to publishing in scientific journals, Sheila's research has been featured on media outlets, such as NPR and Change.org, and has helped inform governments, NGOs, and local stakeholders.

Sheila previously was a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Economics and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University. In 2009, Sheila received her Ph.D. from the interdisciplinary program in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in partnership with the Department of Economics, University of California-San Diego.

Areas of Research & Latest Work

Sheila's research focuses on ecosystem services. She works to design and test incentive-based conservation strategies that have outcomes for people and nature.

Her research areas and questions include:

1. Ecosystem Service Valuation and Environmental Decision Making
   • How can incorporating the value of nature into business decision making improve business and conservation outcomes?
2. Coupled Natural and Human Systems
   • What are the ecological and economic conditions that enable local institutions to successfully manage marine resources?
   • How do linked human and natural systems respond to environmental and market shocks? What are the consequences for human welfare and ecosystem health?  

Sheila is answering these questions through research in the U.S. with the Dow Chemical Company and in Mexico and Kiribati with academic partners at Brown University, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and University of Victoria.

Interviews, Essays and Media

In addition to publishing in peer-reviewed journals (see publications tab), Sheila has written numerous essays and been interviewed by a variety of media outlets about her research:

• Webinar on Ecosystem Services (Yale Center for Business and the Environment)
• Fat Fish, Sick Fishery? (Cool Green Science blog)
• Reef Conservation Strategy Backfires (NPR)
• Protecting coasts around the world is more than ecology, more than economics (Today at Brown)
• Q&A on Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and the Dow Collaboration
• Bringing Efficient and Effective Ecosystem Markets to Scale: Challenges & Solutions
• Bringing Efficient and Effective Ecosystem Markets to Scale. Part 2: Challenges & Solutions
• Understanding the World's Oceans: Scripps Researchers Travel World to Study Reefs, Fish and Corals (This Week @UCSD)
• The Tides of Change (The Yale Globalist)
• Coral Reefs and What Ruins Them (The New York Times)

Sheila Walsh

Senior Scientist, Sustainability Science

2012

Walsh, S. M., B.I. Ruttenberg, S.L. Hamilton, M. Donovan, S.A. Sandin. 2012. Fishing indirectly affects condition and reproduction in a reef fish community. Journal of Fish Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-8649.2011.03209.x

2011

Ruttenberg B.I., Hamilton S.L., Walsh S.M., Donovan M.K., Friedlander A., et al. 2011. Predator-induced demographic shifts in coral reef fish assemblages. PLoS ONE 6(6): e21062. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021062

Walsh, S.M. 2011. Ecosystem-scale effects of nutrients and fishing on coral reefs. Journal of Marine Biology. doi:10.1155/2011/187248

2010

Walsh, Sheila, Theodore Groves, Sriniketh Nagavarapu. "Promoting Alternative Livelihoods for Conservation Backfires when Non-Monetary Benefits of Traditional Livelihoods are Important", July 2, 2010. UCSD, Center for Environmental Economics, Working Paper Series 10-02.

Eakin, C.M. et al. (and 63 co-authors). 2010. Caribbean corals in crisis: record thermal stress, bleaching, and mortality in 2005. PLoS ONE http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013969

Sandin, S.A., S.M. Walsh, J.B.C. Jackson. 2010. Prey release, trophic cascades, and phase shifts in tropical nearshore marine ecosystems. In J. Estes and J. Terborgh (eds) Trophic cascades, Island Press. pp. 71-91.

Carilli, J.E., R.D. Norris, B. Black, S.M. Walsh, M.D. McField. 2010. Century-scale records of coral growth rates indicate that local stressors reduce coral thermal tolerance threshold. Global Change Biology 16: 1247-1257.

Vermeij, M., M. Dailer, S.M. Walsh, M. Donovan, C. Smith. 2010. The effects of trophic interactions and spatial competition on algal community composition on Hawaiian Coral Reefs. Marine Ecology 31: 291-299.

2009

Carilli, J.E., R.D. Norris, B.A. Black, S.M. Walsh, M. McField. 2009. Local stressors reduce coral resilience to bleaching. PLoS ONE 4(7): e6324.

2008

Sandin S.A., J.E. Smith, E.E. DeMartini, E.D. Dinsdale, S.D. Donner, A.M. Friedlander, T. Konotchick, M. Maley, J.E. Maragos, D. Obura, O. Pantos, G. Paulay, M. Richie, F. Rowher, R.E. Schroeder, S.M. Walsh, J.B.C. Jackson., N. Knowlton, E. Sala. 2008. Degradation of coral reef communities across a gradient of recent human disturbance. PLoS ONE 3(2): e1548.

2006

Carson, R. and S. Walsh. 2006. Preventing oil spill damages: lessons from the Exxon Valdez. Oceanis 32(3/4): 349-372.

Garren, M., S.M. Walsh, A. Caccone, N. Knowlton. 2006. Patterns of association between Symbiodinium and members of the Montastraea annularis species complex on spatial scales ranging from within colonies to between geographic ranges. Coral Reefs (25): 503-512.

2005

Walsh, S. and M. McField. 2005. Understanding patterns of bleaching in the Mesoamerican Reef: A collaborative effort to support resilience-based management. Major contribution in H. Schuttenberg and P. Marshall, eds. Responding to global change: a reef manager’s guide to coral bleaching. NOAA, Washington, D.C.

Read Sheila Walsh's Full Biography

Read Sheila Walsh's Full Biography

Read Sheila Walsh's Full Biography