Katarina Klementisova

Project Scientist

Email: kk@smruconsulting.com

Katarina is a Project Scientist at SMRU Consulting Europe. She joined the team in October 2020 after obtaining her master’s degree in marine biology from the University of St Andrews. Katarina works with underwater noise impact assessment during offshore windfarm construction , population modelling and other data processing and analysis tasks. Her research interests include marine mammals’ interspecies interactions and the interactions with their environment.

During her integrated master studies, she worked on two projects. The first focused on utilising advanced statistical modelling in R, including machine learning modelling, to develop a predictive tool for seabird age to be used for conservation purposes. The second project focused on investigating the occurrence and habitat preferences of marine mammals in Iceland utilising data from two different platforms.

  • Degrees and Education

    • 2020 University of St Andrews, Master in Marine Biology (Honours) – Integrated Master program

    Skills and Expertise

    • Data processing for the quantitative impact assessment of underwater noise (UWN) on marine mammals during offshore windfarm construction .

    • Creating a marine mammal database for Cumulative Effects Framework, testing of the framework, workshop demonstration delivery.

    • Updating density maps based on relative environmental suitability index for 15 Arctic marine mammal species. Literature review, data processing, results processing, mapping, geodatabase creation and report writing.

    • Dynamic energy budget (DEB) modelling, testing how different piling schedules, strength of disturbance and environmental stochasticity influence the results of simulations in regard to marine mammal population growth, reproductive success life expectancy and other variables, incorporating movement models.

    • Extensive interim Population Consequences of Disturbance (iPCoD) modelling

    • Personnel training in UWN impact assessment and iPCoD modelling

    • 7 years’ experience in R software, including: data processing, GAM, GLM and GLMM modelling, Random Forest machine learning modelling, integrating GIS software and R for spatial analysis, population modelling and tasks automation.

    • 3 years’ experience in Arc/QGIS with focus on data processing, spatial analysis incorporating static and dynamic variables using custom-build grid, map and geodatabase creation.

    • Over 5 months combined experience in field data collection. Experience regarding marine mammals includes: boat-based and land-based surveys, behavioural observations, data-recording, species identification, photo-identification, assisting with remote biopsy sampling of killer whales, prey sampling, deployment/recovery of hydrophones (drifting and moored), theodolite usage and logistics of conducting fieldwork.

    Specialty

    • Boat and land-based surveys of marine mammals

    • Photo-identification of cetaceans

    • Data processing and analysis in R

    • Spatial analysis integrating QGIS and R

  • Key Projects

    Offshore Wind Farm Projects:

    • Awel-y-Mor OWF – UWN impact assessment

    • Dublin Array OWF – UWN impact assessment, DEB modelling

    • Hornsea 4 OWF – UWN impact assessment

    • Moray West OWF – UWN impact assessment, iPCoD modelling

    • Erebus OWF – UWN impact assessment

    • Pentland Firth Floating OWF – UWN impact assessment

    • Rampion 2 OWF – UWN impact assessment

    • Salamander OWF – baseline

    • West of Orkney OWF – UWN impact assessment

    Research Projects

    • RES/AquaMaps Arctic density surfaces

    • WWF Blue Corridors – literature review on bycatch and collision threats to baleen whales

    • Acoustic cue rates for passive acoustic density estimation (ACCURATE) – processing of sperm and beaked whale DTAGs in Matlab, web content editing

    • Defra time-area threshold project – Population modelling using iPCoD

    • Defra PAMS meta-analysis project – Rshiny interactive map creation

    • Marine mammal dynamic energy budgets

    • Production of Cumulative Effects Framework (CEF) for Key Ecological Receptors – marine mammal database, workshop demonstration of the iPCoD within CEF

    • Marine Species Monitoring program for the U.S. Navy – density dependence exploration within iPCoD, power analysis (AVADECAF)

    • Literature review on toothed and baleen whale dive behaviour for BAE Encyclopaedia updates.

    • Habitat use and occurrence of marine mammals in Vestmannaeyjar.

    • Statistical modelling for conservation biology – Audouin’s gull (Research placement)

  • Brown, A.M., Ryder, M., Klementisová, K., Verfuss, U.K., Darias-O’Hara, A.K., Stevens, A., Matei, M. and Booth, C.G. 2023. An exploration of time-area thresholds for noise management in harbour porpoise SACs: Literature review and population modelling. Report number SMRUC-DEF-2022-001. Prepared for DEFRA, April 2023.

    Chudzinska, M., Klementisová, K., Booth C. and Harwood, J. Combining bioenergetics and movement models to improve understanding of the population consequences of disturbance. Oikos (In review).

    Genovart, M., Klementisová, K., Oro, D., Fernández-López, P., Bertolero, A. and Bartumeus, F., 2022. Inferring the age of breeders from easily measurable variables. Scientific Reports, Volume 12 no 1.

  • Phone: - +44 (0)1334 464746 – then Option 1

    Email: kk@smruconsulting.com

    Mail: Scottish Oceans Institute

    East Sands

    University of St Andrews

    KY16 8LB

    Scotland