My research focuses on fish behavior and fishing gear, and sustainable utilization of fisheries resource of Northeastern US and beyond. This includes the use of flume tank simulations, computer simulations, sea trials, underwater video observations, and statistical methods to understand fish behavior near fishing gears and in their natural habitat. My research extends to the application of fish behavioral knowledge to fishing gear designs and operations to reduce bycatch, discards and impact of fishing on the seabed and other marine resources.

Fish behavior and fish physiology: Fish locomotion, fish muscle physiology, energetics, fish reaction to light, sound, and chemical stimuli; fish migration and movement of fish in natural environment; effect of environment changes on fish.

Fishing gear selectivity and conservation engineering: Design and test of bycatch reduction devices, evaluation and reduction of mortalities of fish encountered with fishing gears but not caught, and mortalities of discards; effect of fishing on the seabed, marine mammals and seabirds; and mitigation measures to reduce these impacts; ghost fishing prevention of lost fishing gears.

Fish behavior near fishing gears: Laboratory and underwater observations of fish reaction to fishing gear components; feeding behavior and food utilization; and applications of fish behavior knowledge in conservation-oriented fishing gear designs and fisheries management practices.

Commercial and survey gear design and test: Design, test, measure and monitor commercial and scientific survey fishing gears; survey methodology, sampling and analysis; flume tank modeling and testing techniques.

Dr. He's Current Research Projects:
- Grid devices to reduce cod in flounder trawls in Gulf of Maine
- Soft species separation system in trawls
- Shallower gillnets to reduce cod discards
- Semi-pelagic shrimp trawls to reduce seabed impact of fishing operations
- Hydrodynamic codend cover for selectivity studies
- Trawl codend selectivity studies in Gulf of Maine
- Use of water-borne kites in the codend to improve size selectivity in shrimp trawls

Dr. He's Recent Publications:

He, P. (2006). Gillnets: gear design, fishing performance and conservation challengers. Marine Technology Society Journal. 40 (3):11-18.

He, P. (2006). Effect of the headline height of gillnets on species selectivity in Gulf of Maine. Fisheries Research 78: 252-256.

He, P, ( 2005). Characteristics of bycatch of porcupine crabs, Neolithodes grimaldii (Milne-Edwards and Bouvier, 1894) from deepwater turbot gillnets in the northwest Atlantic: Fisheries Research 74: 35-43.

He, P. and C.S. Wardle (2005). Effect of caudal fin height on swimming kinematics in the mackerel Scomber scombrus L. Journal of Fish. Biology, 67: 274 - 278.

Winger, P.D., S. Walsh, P. He and J. Brown (2004). Simulating trawl herding in flatfish: the role of fish length in behavior and swimming characteristics. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 61: 1179-1185.

He, P. (2003). Swimming behavior of winter flounder (Pleuronectes americanus) on natural fishing grounds as observed by an underwater video camera. Fisheries Research, 60: 507-514.

Mart??nez, M., H. Guderley, J.-D. Dutil, P. D. Winger, P. He, and S. J. Walsh. (2003). Condition, prolonged swimming performance and muscle metabolic capacities of cod Gadus morhua. Journal of Experimental Biology, 206: 503-511.

He, P. & T. Arimoto (2001). System approach to reducing unaccounted fishing mortalities. Proceedings of Satellite Workshop on Fishing Impact - Evaluation, Solution and Policy. Tokyo, Japan.

He, P. (2001). Reducing seabed contact of bottom trawls. Proceedings of Satellite Workshop on Fishing Impact - Evaluation, Solution and Policy. Tokyo, Japan.

Winger, P., P. He & S. Walsh. (2000). Factors affecting the swimming endurance and catchability of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). Can. J. Fish. Aqua. Sci. 57: 1200-1207.

Contact Address:

Dr. Pingguo He
137 Morse Hall
University of New Hampshire
Durham, NH 03824

Tel. (603) 862-3154
Fax: (603) 862-7006