Carly, UR - Fin-tastic news everyone!

(If you can't tell by now, I really love puns)

Happy Valentine's day week everyone!  Hope you were able to share some time with loved ones or some time for yourself!  Now, let's get something that I love: making a decision!

Last week I was deciding between a few ideas, after said blog I discussed with Dr. Woodall what direction I should head, and finally decided on something to research.

Is there a correlation between sharks and sea surface temperatures (SST)?

That is a simplified version of what I'll be independently researching.  It will be done online with the lovely Ocearch (shark tagging masters) and Windytv (sea surface temperature map).  Check out Ocearch tagging a shark, Miss Costa, to the right. -->

Something I am still deciding is how many species I want to focus on, and from that, how many individuals from each.  The reason I'll need a few individuals is because the tags they have only "ping" when they surface, which won't happen all the time, so the more individuals the better the data.


I've done some research seeing if anything like this has been done in the past, and I'm really not finding a whole lot.  Primarily what I'm seeing is sea surface temperature being one calculation recorded among 10 other factors with one specific species, and usually in one particular area. For example, in 2014 there was a study done on whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) and their largely unknown reproductive ecology.  The focus was their habitat use at darwin island, galapagos marine reserve.  There was a negative correlation between the SST and the whale shark presence (1).

In fact, there are several articles on the whale shark, but not many other species.  Looks like I have some work to do.

Fins and grins,
Carly Magnus

1. Acuña-Marrero D, Jiménez J, Smith F, et al. Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) Seasonal Presence, Residence Time and Habitat Use at Darwin Island, Galapagos Marine Reserve. Klimley AP, ed. PLoS ONE. 2014;9(12):e115946. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0115946.