October news update

Bronwyn is now back from China where she travelled along the Silk Road (on leave, although she was interested in observing fish in art). She also attended the 85th commemorative ceremony of the Japanese Society of Fisheries Science in Tokyo followed by their symposium focused on Fisheries Science for Future Generations. The range of presentations was extensive with something of interest to everyone! After 4 weeks away it’s a matter of catching up on emails (not so much fun) and with students (lot’s more fun hearing updates).

Our publication “Pre-Columbian Fishing on the Coast of the Atacama Desert, Northern Chile: An Investigation of Fish Size and Species Distribution Using Otoliths From Camarones Punta Norte and Caleta Vitor” has finally been published in the latest issue of The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. It’s still available on line for free from this link (50 free eprints). This research formed part of Morgan Disspain’s PhD and focused on fish otoliths from several sites of human occupation in northern Chile (near Arica). Species distributions and changes over time were investigated and suggested that one site was occupied sporadically whereas the other site showed more continuous occupation. The size of the main species, Sciaena delicosa, was also estimated and shown to be larger than modern fish caught today.

Also, congratulations to Kayla Gilmore, whose first paper from her PhD research has just been accepted in Oecologia. The paper is titled “Testing hypoxia: physiological effects of long-term exposure in freshwater fish”. More on this paper later.

A former PhD student from the Gillanders Aquatic Ecology Lab has hit a milestone with one of his PhD papers. Nick Payne investigated different approaches to understanding population dynamics and behavior of giant Australian cuttlefish for his PhD. One of his papers now has 100 citations: “Interpreting diel activity patterns from acoustic telemetry: the need for controls” published in Marine Ecology Progress Series. Congratulations Nick. Nick now has a Cascade Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Roehampton in London and is a visiting researcher at Queen’s University in Belfast.