Fiona Beltram was awarded a Voss Environmental Fellowship to study the dynamics and ecological impacts of cyanobacterial mats in the Galapagos Islands. We first discovered these mats covering large areas of the reef at several of our monitoring sites during the extreme El Niño event of 2015. Since then, Fiona has been developing experiments and observational techniques for assessing the environmental drivers of this new community state, what species might be potential herbivores of cyanobacteria, and how these mats affects the sessile invertebrates and algae that they overgrow.
Camila Lupi was awarded a UTRA grant to study the behavior of herbivorous fishes feeding on algae in extreme high wave environments. Camila will be working with graduate student Robbie Lamb using high-resolution measurements of wave velocities using an acoustic Doppler velocimeter, while simultaneously filming feeding behavior. The goal is to determine the flow conditions that are sufficient for excluding any given species from foraging in the shallow subtidal. This information will be used to validate a general model of periodically stressful environments and how they limit the potential for top-down ecological control.
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