#biological oceanography

March 4th, 2021

Zoomester studyblr challenge

Day 4: For my researching fellows, what are you researching on? If you’re not currently researching, what is the topic within your field that you’re most passionate about?

Well, I'm not doing any research rn BUT I was until last october. My research project aimed to monitor marine bioindicators of human impacts and/or climate change.

So lemme tell you about my precious worms.

They're actually Polychaetes, the equivalent of worms but in the sea. So yeah, they live in the sand, at the bottom of water bodies, are part of the basis of the food chain, and are a kind of a biological elevator: carrying water and oxygen to the sediment layers; and nutrients from the sediment to the water.

Ok. But think with me, if they carry such important functions in their ecosystem then, if something bad happens to them, the whole thing would be affected, right? Imagine, for instance, the damage if Polychaetes, wich are the food of crabs and fishes (= OUR FOOD), get contamined!? We'd also be contamined, right? And, further, it could also cause economic damage to some sectors of the market.

So, let's keep thinking. Say we have some toxic substance in a marine environment. As Polychaetes usually don't move around that much, they'd be affected by these contaminants many times, both through water AND sand. So, we could use them to identify that something bad is happening since the beginning of the contamination, and then we'd be able to prevent the fish (and us) from becoming contaminated.

That is to say: Polychaetes are great to indicate if there's some environmental impact in a marine system. But not just that, they're just as great to indicate WHAT KIND of impact it is, since their stress response (mortality, increased abundance, changes in its life cycle...) is different for each type of pollution.

ie, Polychaetes rules

Meet Aletta Yñiguez, oceanographer

1) What do you do?

I’m both a researcher and a teacher. Research-wise my field is biological oceanography and I’m fascinated with how large-scale ecosystem patterns and processes emerge from the interactions at the level of the individual organisms.

My research centers around understanding what happens to the base of the food web of marine ecosystems, especially the primary producer, phytoplankton. I go about studying this using an arsenal of field, laboratory and computational modeling approaches. 

My long-term goal is to help develop the infrastructure and capacity to tie together automated techniques in biological oceanography and real-time models for decision-support systems useful in ensuring sustainable fisheries in the country.

2) Where do you work?

I work in the classrooms, offices and laboratories of the Marine Science Institute, University of the Philippines Diliman. Our research lab page is here. I also work in the waters of various places around the Philippines for our field work, like our sites in Bolinao (Pangasinan), Samar, Leyte, and Batangas,

3) Tell us about the photos! 

[Left:] The first photo was taken around May 2012 when we conducted a research cruise along the northeastern side of Luzon onboard the vessel R/V Melville (used to be operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography) to look at the influence of large-scale ocean circulation on Philippine hydrodynamics and productivity.

[Right:] This photo was taken while I was facilitating an educational game called Resilience: Survive and Thrive that aims to teach about balancing climate resilience and sustainable community development in a fun manner. I included this photo here to highlight my advocacies on the importance of a good education founded on solid scientific thinking, as well as creating a synergy between your research voyage and teaching.

4) Tell us about your academic career path so far.

I was always a curious kid and probably irritated my parents with the many questions I had for them. Maybe it was also that curiosity that led me to want to explore ideas and the world around me both through books and experientially inside and outside our home. I became concerned about what was happening with the world’s environment during my high school years after reading books like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring that talked about the detrimental effects on the environment of the thoughtless use of pesticides. That concern plus my fascination with science made me relatively sure I wanted to pursue some sort of biology or environmental science course and be a researcher. 

Fortunately, I was accepted in the B.S. Biology program of UP Los Baños which had many biology tracks apart from the typical more medical one. I majored in Ecology and became exposed to different ecosystems from grasslands to caves and bats to the coral reefs of Puerto Galera. They were all fascinating but the coral reefs and marine environment intrigued me the most with the way the organisms were “arranged” in a particular way. From there I never turned back and after college I got a job as a research assistant at the UP Marine Science Institute before getting my Ph.D. from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Florida. Now, I’m back into the fold of UP MSI as a faculty member.

5) Anything else you’d like to share?