Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Suresh Andrew Sethi, PhD

Assistant Unit Leader - New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit

Research Interests

The core of Suresh's research program centers around quantitative fisheries science in both freshwater and marine environments, with a goal of informing fisheries and aquatic natural resource management efforts. Research topics include population abundance and demographic assessments, habitat use studies, phenology, aquatic invasive species management and incorporation of genetic tools into fish and wildlife management. Natural resource systems are linked social-ecological systems; effective management requires consideration of ecological, economic, and sociocultural components of natural resource systems. As such, he also maintains cross-disciplinary collaborations in the social and managerial sciences which seek to understand the dynamics of resource users and identify mechanisms to cope with high variability inherent in natural resource systems. Research topics of interest for these collaborations include risk assessment and risk management in natural resource systems.

Teaching Interests

  • Applied statistics
  • Fisheries ecology
  • Natural resource management science

Professional Experience

  • Assistant Unit Leader, New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, 2016-

Education and Certifications

  • Ph D University of Washington 2011

  • MS University of Washington 2007

  • BS University of Wisconsin 2001

Science and Products

Filter Total Items: 32

Elodea mediates juvenile salmon growth by altering physical structure in freshwater habitats

Invasive species introductions in high latitudes are accelerating and elevating the need to address questions of their effects on Subarctic and Arctic ecosystems. As a driver of ecosystem function, submerged aquatic vegetation is one of the most deleterious biological invasions to aquatic food webs. The aquatic plant Elodea spp. has potential to be a widespread invader to Arctic and Subarctic ecos
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Alaska Science Center

Diversity in spawning habitat use among Great Lakes Cisco populations

Cisco (Coregonus artedi) once dominated fish communities in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Restoring the abundance and distribution of this species has emerged as a management priority, yet our understanding of Cisco spawning habitat use is insufficient to characterise habitat needs for these populations and assess whether availability of suitable spawning habitat could be a constraint to recovery. W
By
Cooperative Research Units

Estimating Pacific walrus abundance and survival with multievent mark-recapture models

Arctic marine ecosystems are undergoing rapid physical and biological change associated with climate warming and loss of sea ice. Sea ice loss will impact many species through altered spatial and temporal availability of resources. In the Bering and Chukchi Seas, the Pacific walrus Odobenus rosmarus divergens is one species that could be impacted by rapid environmental change, and thus, population
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Cooperative Research Units, Alaska Science Center, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center

Ecological and social strategies for managing fisheries using the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework

Fisheries management is a complex task made even more challenging by rapid and unprecedented socioecological transformations associated with climate change. The Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework can be a useful tool to support fisheries management in facing the high uncertainty and variability associated with aquatic ecosystem transformations. Here, RAD strategies are presented to address ecolo
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers

Balancing prey availability and predator consumption: A multispecies stock assessment for Lake Ontario

Trophic interactions are drivers of ecosystem change and stability, yet are often excluded from fishery assessment models, despite their potential capacity to improve estimates of species dynamics and future fishery sustainability. In Lake Ontario, recreational salmonine fisheries, including Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush), depend on a single prey sp
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Cooperative Research Units, Great Lakes Science Center

RAD adaptive management for transforming ecosystems

Intensifying global change is propelling many ecosystems toward irreversible transformations. Natural resource managers face the complex task of conserving these important resources under unprecedented conditions and expanding uncertainty. As once familiar ecological conditions disappear, traditional management approaches that assume the future will reflect the past are becoming increasingly unten
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Cooperative Research Units

Marine ecotourism for small pelagics as a source of alternative income generating activities to fisheries in a tropical community

Overharvest has led to marine ecosystem degradation and declining fishery catches in many tropical communities. To allow stocks to recover and provide increased flows of food and income, reductions in fishing effort are necessary. The development of Alternative Income Generating Activities can help to reduce the economic reliance of coastal communities on fishing, potentially reducing pressure on
By
Cooperative Research Units

Managing for RADical ecosystem change: Applying the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework

Ecosystem transformation involves the emergence of persistent ecological or social–ecological systems that diverge, dramatically and irreversibly, from prior ecosystem structure and function. Such transformations are occurring at increasing rates across the planet in response to changes in climate, land use, and other factors. Consequently, a dynamic view of ecosystem processes that accommodates r
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Cooperative Research Units, Alaska Science Center

Declining diversity of wild-caught species puts dietary nutrient supplies at risk

Although biodiversity loss adversely influences a variety of ecosystem functions, how declining wild food diversity affects nutrient supplies for people is poorly understood. Here, we analyze the impact of declining biodiversity on nutrients supplied by fish using detailed information from the Peruvian Amazon, where inland fisheries provide a critical source of nutrition for many of the region’s 8
By
Cooperative Research Units

Substitution of inland fisheries with aquaculture and chicken undermines human nutrition in the Peruvian Amazon

With declining capture fisheries production, maintaining nutrient supplies largely hinges on substituting wild fish with economically comparable farmed animals. Although such transitions are increasingly commonplace across global inland and coastal communities, their nutritional consequences are unknown. Here, using human demographic and health information, and fish nutrient composition data from
By
Cooperative Research Units

Nuclear eDNA estimates population allele frequencies and abundance in experimental mesocosms

Advances in environmental DNA (eDNA) methodologies have led to improvements in the ability to detect species and communities in aquatic environments, yet the majority of studies emphasize biological diversity at the species level by targeting variable sites within the mitochondrial genome. Here, we demonstrate that eDNA approaches also have the capacity to detect intraspecific diversity in the nuc
By
Cooperative Research Units

Connectivity between lentic and lotic freshwater habitats identified as a conservation priority for coho salmon

Juvenile Pacific salmon exhibit diverse habitat use and migration strategies to navigate high environmental variability and predation risk during freshwater residency. Increasingly, urbanization and climate-driven hydrological alterations are affecting the availability and quality of aquatic habitats in salmon catchments. Thus, conservation of freshwater habitat integrity has emerged as an importa
By
Cooperative Research Units
link
Staff on frozen Thunder Bay, Lake Superior, collecting egg samples

Aquatic Native Species and Habitat Restoration: Cisco Spawning Habitat Assessment

Cisco (formerly known as Lake Herring) Coregonus artedi are native shallow water coregonines which were formerly very abundant in the Great Lakes and provided large commercial fisheries and healthy prey to native piscivores. In most areas outside of Lake Superior, cisco abundance is greatly reduced and in Lakes Ontario and Erie they are uncommon to rare.
link

Aquatic Native Species and Habitat Restoration: Cisco Spawning Habitat Assessment

Cisco (formerly known as Lake Herring) Coregonus artedi are native shallow water coregonines which were formerly very abundant in the Great Lakes and provided large commercial fisheries and healthy prey to native piscivores. In most areas outside of Lake Superior, cisco abundance is greatly reduced and in Lakes Ontario and Erie they are uncommon to rare.
Learn More
link
Elodea spp. on a rake in Sand Lake in Anchorage, Alaska

Effect of Elodea spp. on Fish Performance Mediated Through Food Web Interactions

The potential for invasive species introductions in Arctic and Subarctic ecosystems is growing as climate change manifests and human activity increases in high latitudes.
By
Biological Threats and Invasive Species Research Program, Species Management Research Program, Alaska Science Center
link

Effect of Elodea spp. on Fish Performance Mediated Through Food Web Interactions

The potential for invasive species introductions in Arctic and Subarctic ecosystems is growing as climate change manifests and human activity increases in high latitudes.
Learn More

Survival and ancillary data associated with Cisco acoustic tagging experiment conducted in 2018 and 2019

These data include survival information for Cisco in the laboratory for up to 30 days after surgical implantation of two different sizes of Lotek acoustic tags. Three-hundred fish of a range of sizes were used for the implantation and controls of this experiment, which was repeated three time. Ancillary data of surgical condition, recovery, and time until death or tag expulsion were also recorded,
By
Great Lakes Science Center

Science and Products