Author: javimettalight

Sofía Chacano Parada

Posted on by javimettalight in Interns

STRI INTERN

Hi! I’m Sofi, a marine biologist from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) who is in love with the place that sustains life on Earth: The Ocean. After graduating from university, I had the opportunity to fly from a temperate zone to a vibrant and colorful ecosystem known as the tropics.

The purpose of this journey was to study the local and seasonal variability of nutrient levels in the Gulf of Panama. Since the northeast winds, together with Panama’s topographic profile, provide the gulf with about three months of cold, nutrient-rich waters through seasonal upwelling, it is essential to understand the dynamics of nutrients in the shallow waters of this region and how nutrient availability varies during the dry (upwelling) and wet (non-upwelling) seasons.

Finally, as a curious person who wants to understand how the ocean works, it has been fascinating not only to study a completely different marine ecosystem, but also to compare it with the upwelling systems of temperate zones, such as the Humboldt and California Current systems, and to gain an insight into how and why the tropics host such a high diversity of marine species, even when coastal upwelling is either absent or short-lived.

Isabella Leonhard

Posted on by javimettalight in Fellows

Stri fellow

I am a doctoral student in the Palaeobiology and Historical Ecology group at the University of Vienna. In my dissertation, Survival of the Smallest? I focus on how climate change and other human pressures influence growth and life history in black gobies – small, bottom-dwelling generalists that often swim under the scientific radar. Although not commercially targeted and may appear unremarkable, black gobies are key players in coastal ecosystems, offering valuable insights into how non-commercial species respond to long-term environmental change.

I use incrementally grown ear-stones (otoliths) to compare modern goby growth patterns with radiocarbon-dated fossil (Holocene) otoliths from sediments. These small, calcified structures grow throughout a fish’s life, recording seasonal growth like tree rings. As the only complex parts that regularly accumulate on the seafloor, otoliths offer rare archives of historical growth patterns, making them ideal for reconstructing long-term trends and establishing baselines of pre-industrial conditions.

Thanks to the James Van Tassell Fellowship, I am excited to temporarily swap the Mediterranean for the tropics. During my stay in Panama, I will use similar otolith-based methods to study growth and life history variation in cryptobenthic gobies from the Caribbean and the tropical eastern Pacific – ecologically essential reef fishes that, like their Adriatic relatives, leave behind a historical record that can help uncover how tropical ecosystems have changed through time.

Javiera Mora

Posted on by javimettalight in Interns

STRI INtern

Soy Javiera Mora, Bióloga con orientación en Biología marina y Limnología de la Universidad de Panamá. Nacida en Chile, Viña del Mar, un país muy rico en diversidad y productividad de recursos marinos, por lo que desde pequeña estuve en contacto con las zonas marino-costeras, curiosa de entender los procesos que permitían el desarrollo y presencia de las especies en ciertas zonas.

He sido voluntaria en proyectos científicos desde mi tercer año de Universidad, colaborando en colectas y procesamiento de diversas muestras, como: peces, corales, tiburones y cetáceos. A lo largo de esta trayectoria me enamoré de los peces de arrecife de coral al trabajar en un proyecto sobre ecomorfología trófica de especies hermanas separadas por el Istmo de Panamá, el cual me permitió desarrollar mi tesis de Licenciatura cuyo objetivo fue comprender la plasticidad alimenticia de dos pares de especies hermanas con nichos tróficos diferentes por medio de análisis de contenido estomacal. Sin embargo, dentro de mis intereses también destaca el efecto del sonido en el desarrollo de comunidades biológicas, la ecología trófica y la restauración de ecosistemas. Durante mi estancia en el O’Dea lab estaré trabajando con otolitos de peces mictófidos, identificando, midiendo y colectando muestras de isótopos estables para comprender como han respondido a eventos de Hipoxia a lo largo del tiempo evolutivo.