NSF Postdoctoral Fellowships in Biology combine research and training components to prepare young scientists for careers in biology and require a plan to broaden participation of groups under-represented in science and engineering. The fellowships advance NSF efforts to diversify the STEM workforce now and in the future. This fellowship to C. Marisa Tellez supports research and training in predicting the health status of aquatic ecosystems by studying crocodilian top predators and their parasites. The host institution is the University of California, Santa Barbara under the sponsorship of Dr. Armand Kuris. The lack of data on community diversity of crocodilian habitats hinders the ability of conservation managers to properly assess how anthropogenic disturbances affect wildlife. Training objectives include techniques in community ecology, biochemistry, and parasitology in order to assay biological indicators.
The research examines the significance of parasites as biodiversity and health indicators of crocodilian habitats. First, the study determines if parasite species richness correlates with biodiversity. Second, heavy metal analyses of hosts and parasites, representing three different trophic levels, are being used to evaluate human impact. Analyzing pollutant levels in both hosts and parasites is a novel approach to assess anthropogenic impact. This may provide a more advantageous indicator of ecosystem functioning, and of environmental quality, than is presently available. Overall, the proposed analyses foster novel theories and ideals about the function of community interactions, energy flow and food web relationships in tropical systems.
