The DEEPEND Consortium's master’s student/Graduate Research Assistant, Natalie Slayden, was named a GOMRI scholar at the beginning of this year and her work is now featured on the GOMRI website:
“The ocean’s deep-pelagic ecosystem is the largest and least understood habitat on Earth. In the Gulf of Mexico, it was the largest ecosystem affected by the Deepwater Horizon incident. Because there was very limited pre-spill data about deep-pelagic organisms’ biodiversity, abundance, and distribution, it is difficult to determine how oiling may have affected different deep-sea species.
Information about the longevity and age at reproduction of key Gulf of Mexico deep-sea fauna, such as lanternfish or fangtooths, is crucial to determine their vulnerability and resilience to disturbances such as oil spills. However, the depths at which these organisms live and the challenges involved with raising them in captivity or tagging them in the wild make collecting this data difficult.
Natalie Slayden uses ear stones, called otoliths, collected from fish living in Deepwater Horizon-affected waters to study the age and growth of nine Gulf of Mexico deep-sea fish species. Her research can be used to estimate the lifespan and age at which these deep-sea fishes reproduce to determine how quickly a potentially compromised assemblage might be replaced following an environmental disturbance.
Natalie is a master’s student with Nova Southeastern University’s Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences and a GoMRI Scholar with the Deep-Pelagic Nekton Dynamics of the Gulf of Mexico (DEEPEND) Consortium. The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Natalie Slayden and their important contributions.
The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals."
Congratulations Natalie from the entire DEEPEND team!!
