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ContactWill Rayment image

Office 310 Castle Street, room 211a
Tel +64 3 479 8304
Email will.rayment@otago.ac.nz

Academic qualifications

BA Oxford
MSc University College London
PhD University of Otago

Research interests

  • Ecology and conservation biology of cetaceans
  • Capture-recapture methods and analyses
  • Species-habitat relationships
  • Efficacy of Marine Protected Areas and MPA networks

Will is also a member of the Coastal People: Southern Skies collaboration that connects communities with world-leading, cross-discipline research to rebuild coastal ecosystems.

Coastal People: Southern Skies

Teaching

  • ECOL 111 Ecology and Conservation of Diversity
  • MARI 112 Marine Biology: The Living Ocean
  • MARI 302 Biology and Behaviour of Marine Vertebrates (course co-ordinator)
  • MARI 401 Advanced Methods in Marine Science
  • MARI 429 Coastal Marine Environment (course co-ordinator)
  • MARI 431 Antarctic and Southern Ocean Science
  • ZOOL 418 Conservation Biology of Marine Mammals

Postgraduate students

Current students

  • Steph Bennington, PhD: Transferring statistical models between populations and species
  • Leah Crowe, PhD: Variability and vulnerability of the critically endangered Fiordland bottlenose dolphin
  • Nicholas Daudt, PhD: Spatiotemporal patterns and environmental drivers of seabird assemblages in Australasia, a world hotspot of seabird diversity
  • Stella Simpson, MSc: Investigating the effects of oceanic conditions on sperm whales and their prey at Kaikōura
  • Hanna Ravn, MSc:  Pakake / NZ sea lion diet analysis – a participatory science approach

Completed students

  • Lindsay Wickman, PhD: Population modelling of Hector's dolphins at Banks Peninsula, NZ.
  • Namrata Chand, PhD: Ecosystem Functioning and Role of Soft Sediment Macroalgal Communities
  • David Johnston PhD: Sentinels of the Southern Ocean: southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) as indicators of oceanic productivity
  • José Emilio Trujillo Moyano, PhD: Insights into neonate reef sharks' vulnerability to predation: a behavioural, physiological and ecological approach
  • Gaby Keeler-May, PhD: Undaria pinnatifida management and control in Southern New Zealand
  • Moss Thompson, MSc: Pup survival of the New Zealand sea lion on the Otago Coast
  • Hannah Williams, MSc: Abundance and distribution of Hector's dolphins in Otago and effectiveness of current protection measures

Publications

Crowe, L. M., Corne, C., Dawson, S. M., Pine, M., Rayment, W. J., Schofield, M. R., & Stanley, J. A. (2025). If these walls could talk: Investigating bottlenose dolphin occupancy and range in Fiord ecosystems using passive acoustic monitoring and visual surveys. Aquatic Conservation, 35, e70084. doi: 10.1002/aqc.70084 Journal - Research Article

Dawson, S. M., Slooten, E., & Rayment, W. J. (2025). Hector's dolphin Cephalorhynchus hectori (Van Beneden, 1881). In T. A. Jefferson (Ed.), Ridgway & Harrison's handbook of marine mammals (Vol. 1): Coastal dolphins and porpoises. (pp. 395-419). London, UK: Academic Press. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-443-13746-4.00014-7 Chapter in Book - Research

Patton, P. T., Pacifici, K., Baird, R. W., Oleson, E. M., Allen, J. B., Ashe, E., … Johnston, D. R., … Rayment, W. J., … Bejder, L. (2025). Optimizing automated photo identification for population assessments. Conservation Biology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1111/cobi.14436 Journal - Research Article

Dawson, S. M., Barlow, J., Guerra, M., Leunissen, E. M., Webster, T. A., & Rayment, W. J. (2024). Shepherd's beaked whale (Tasmacetus shepherdi) produces a diverse variety of ultrasonic pulses [Note]. Marine Mammal Science. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1111/mms.13199 Journal - Research Other

Bennington, S. M., Bourke, S. D., Wilkinson, S. P., Englebert, N., Bond, D. M., Jeunen, G.-J., Dawson, S., Slooten, E., Dillingham, P. W., Rayment, W. J., & Alexander, A. (2024). New insights into the population structure of Hector's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus hectori) revealed using environmental DNA. Environmental DNA, 6, e70024. doi: 10.1002/edn3.70024 Journal - Research Article

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