Author: Kristin Saksa

Ich Lab member June Shrestha starts internship at the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries in Monterey Bay, CA!

Kristin Saksa
Ich Lab member June Shrestha was selected as a 2018 COAST summer intern with the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries in Monterey Bay. June will be working side-by-side with sanctuary regional managers on a new project, “Connections between National Forests and National Marine Sanctuaries”. The purpose of this project is to explore and describe the connections between national forests and national marine sanctuaries of California to advance land-sea conservation by better understanding the interconnectedness between terrestrial and marine ecosystems.    
 
About the Host:  Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS), a branch of NOAA, is responsible for managing 14 special marine protected areas designated by the federal government. The West Coast Region (WCR) manages 15,333 mi2 of marine protected areas around Channel Islands, Cordell Bank, Greater Farallones, Monterey Bay and Olympic Coast. The WCR coordinates programs and initiatives that affect resources within and beyond the boundaries of the five west coast national marine sanctuaries to ensure natural and cultural resources are protected while allowing uses that are sustainable.   

Ich lab members present at Western Society of Naturalists (WSN)

Kristin Saksa

WSN

Western Society of Naturalists is a society with a strong focus on ecology and marine biology that holds a conference every November to hear about exciting new biological research.  Many members of the Moss Landing ichthyology lab attended the 2017 WSN meeting in Pasadena, CA.  Some gave talks, some prepared posters, and some just came to learn!

Stephen Pang presented a talk on his thesis entitled, "The effect of male limitation on the reproductive output of two sex-changing fish (Rhinogobiops nicholsii and Lythrypnus dalli)"

Laurel Lam presented a talk on her thesis entitled, "Spatial Demographic and Life-History Variation in Lingcog (Ophiodon elongatus) along the US West Coast"

June Shrestha presented a 5-minute "speed talk" on her thesis entitled, "Fish pee: A hidden source of limiting nutrients in kelp forests"

Kristin Saksa presented a poster on her thesis entitled, "The effects of low pH and low dissolved oxygen on larval gopher rockfish (S. carnatus) survival and deformity"

Jacoby Baker presents a poster on thesis research on "Transcriptomic responses of Gopher rockfish (Sebastes carnatus) larvae to predicted upwelling conditions"

MLML "tardy-grads" compete in the lab olympics

Corey Garza (CSUMB), Cheryl Logan (CSUMB), Scott Hamilton (MLML) and Jacoby Baker (MLML student) enjoy the WSN auction

MLML Ich labbies Melissa Palmisciano and Jacoby Baker getting stoked on Saturday night lab olympics

New publication on the effects of ocean acidification on juvenile rockfishes in PLoS ONE!

Kristin Saksa

Species-Specific Responses of Juvenile Rockfish to Elevated pCO2: From Behavior to Genomics

plos_one_rockfish

The Ichthyology lab is proud to announce a new publication about the effects of ocean acidification on juvenile rockfishes found in California!  Our own Dr. Scott Hamilton was the lead author, and it was co-authored by former MLML master’s student Will Fennie as well as collaborators from California State University Monterey Bay, NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, UC Santa Cruz, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.  This is the first study to examine a comprehensive suite of physiological, behavioral and genomic responses to ocean acidification in temperate fishes and found that different species had variable responses to elevated pCO2.  To learn more about the work and its significance, check out the press release issued by CSUMB, or follow this link to the open access article itself!

Three new students enter the lab!

Kristin Saksa

new_students

The Ichthyology lab wants to welcome three new students that started this fall!  Rachel Brooks, Melissa Palmisciano, and Kristin Saksa joined the lab this August and bring with them a wealth of diverse experiences and expertise to the lab.  Click on the links above to learn more about them, their backgrounds, and their interests, and if you haven’t yet, visit our people page to learn about the faculty and other students in the lab!