Lab Alum

Mark Albins, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow (2013-2016)

Education
BA 2003 University of Hawaii at Hilo
PhD 2011 Oregon State University

Current: Research Faculty, Dauphin Island Sea Lab
Email: mark.a.albins@gmail.com

Statement of Research Interests
With strict limits on the funding available to deal with the lionfish invasion in the western Atlantic Ocean, it is critical that managers have access to meaningful estimates of the level of effort required to reduce local lionfish populations and to mitigate their effects on native species. During Mark’s postdoc, we conducted a large-scale field experiment to determine the frequency of manual removal efforts necessary to substantially reduce and maintain local invasive lionfish populations to levels at which their negative effects on native fishes were mitigated. The results of this study suggested that monthly removals were effective at reducing the abundance of lionfish and that tri-annual removals were not different than removal-free controls. Furthermore, no removal level was effective at reducing biomass. These results suggest an incredibly intense level of effort would be required to reduce the populations of lionfish, even at small local scales.

 

Oscar “Butch” Ayala, M.S.

MS Student (2014-2020)

Education
BS 1999 University of South Florida
MS 2020 University of South Florida

In Memoriam (May 12, 1963-April 19, 2023)
Most Recent Position: Assistant Research Scientist, Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute

Statement of Research Interests
Butch grew up in Paraguay and England and worked at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI) in their Marine Fisheries Dependent Monitoring Program for over 15 years. He was instrumental in the development and implementation of an at-sea observer program to improve data from the for-hire fishery. Data from that program are essential for stock assessments, of which he participated in 27. Among the many other studies Butch was involved in as a full-time staff scientist with FWRI, his masters research was an experimental study on different barotrauma mitigation methods to improve survival of reef fishes that were returned to the water. He focused on red snapper and red grouper, two of the most intensively targeted reef fishes in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Both species have high discard rates and both are captured from depths that result in barotrauma. Butch found that for both species, recompression to depths of 20 meters or deeper using descender devices resulted in tag return rates (a proxy for survival) that were 2-2.5 times higher than the more commonly used venting method. His work therefore has important management and policy implications for how we release captured reef fishes in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Dinorah Chacin, Ph.D.

PhD Student (2014-2019)
MS Student (2011-2014)

Education
BS 2010 Florida International University
MS 2014 University of South Florida
PhD 2019 University of South Florida

Current: Natural Resources Specialist, NOAA SERO
Email: dinorah.chacin@noaa.gov

Statement of Research Interests
Dinorah was a doctoral student interested in understanding how spatial components and heterogeneity in seascapes influenced ecological patterns and processes across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Her research sought to understand how the surrounding seascape influenced communities, species demographic rates, ecological mechanisms, and habitat connectivity. She studied the effects of multiple neighboring habitats (saltmarsh grass, oyster bars, and black mangroves) on the habitat quality of the Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea Virginica). In response to the northward expansion of mangroves observed globally in subtropical regions, Dinorah studied how the growth and survival of the Eastern Oyster was affected by the replacement of saltmarsh grass habitats by mangroves. She also investigated the ecological roles of introduced (non-native) and native algal species in East African seascapes. Her goal was to identify which fishes use algae as habitats and food, and whether there was connectivity between algal beds and other shallow-water habitats. For her research Dinorah incorporated a range of methods including data collection through observations, field-based manipulations, exploration of large data sets using multivariate statistics, ArcGIS, and stable isotope analysis.

 

Joseph Curtis, M.S.

MS Student (2013-2016)

Education
BS 2013 University of California, Santa Cruz
MS 2016 University of South Florida

Current: PhD student, University of Otago (New Zealand)
Email: joseph.curtis@postgrad.otago.ac.nz

Statement of Research Interests
Raised in California, Joseph fell in love with the ocean at an early age and became SCUBA certified at 13. Since then, he has exploring marine life and ecosystems across the globe, diving and snorkeling off the coast of every continent except Antarctica. Joseph earned a BS in Marine Biology from UC Santa Cruz, and is proud to be a banana slug alumni. After earning his degree, Joseph took on a coral reef aquaculture internship with the Mote Marine Lab and developed an interest in returning to Florida to study marine conservation ecology. Joseph also is passionate about outreach and marine science education, and spent two years on Catalina Island teaching children about the oceans through interactive lessons and snorkeling trips. As a Master’s student in the Fish Ecology Lab, Joseph studied the evidence for potential interactions and competition between invasive lionfish and a native grouper species (Graysby) in Biscayne National park. Mostly using applied analyses of stable isotopes, Joseph found that native predator diet was less varied in the presence of higher levels of lionfish, and detected a high degree of resource use overlap that indicated a strong likelihood for competition. Joseph also consulted stable isotopes in layers of lionfish and Graysby eye lenses, using this novel technique to describe trends in diet and movement of both species. Joseph hopes his work can contribute useful information to resource managers and conservation scientists aiming to understand and mitigate the effects of invasive lionfish throughout the western Atlantic. Joseph’s studies were funded by two USF endowed fellowships (Von Rosenstiel and Garrels), Florida Sea Grant Guy Harvey Scholarship, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (2014).

 

Meaghan Faletti, M.S.

MS Student (2016-2019)

Education
BS 2013 Florida State University
MS 2019 University of South Florida

Current: Information Specialist, US Geological Survey
Email: mfaletti@usgs.gov

Awards
NOAA Marine Resource Management Fellowship 2016-2017

Statement of Research Interests
Meaghan received her Bachelor’s degree from Florida State University in 2013, where she primarily studied the effects of invasive lionfish and Red Grouper on community structure in Florida Bay. She came to USF from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), where she spent two years coordinating the state’s Lionfish Outreach Program. She spends most of her free time diving, spearfishing, and volunteering with FWC. Meaghan’s future goals include conducting research on recreationally and commercially important marine species to assist in fisheries management. With a strong passion for outreach, she hopes to facilitate communication between the fishing and diving communities with fishery managers to determine knowledge gaps and how to fill them. Ultimately, she’d like to explore how fish population dynamics may affect broad-scale marine ecology and promote the development of ecosystem-based management approaches. For her Master’s work, Meaghan studied movement of the recreationally important Hogfish, Lachnolaimus maximus, in the Gulf of Mexico using stable isotope analysis.

 

Ileana Freytes-Ortiz, Ph.D.

PhD Student (2012-2018)

Education
BS 2011 University of Puerto Rico
MS 2017 University of Idaho
PhD 2018 University of South Florida

Current: Data Analyst, Rakuten Marketing
Email: ileana.freytes.ortiz@gmail.com

Awards
NSF LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate 2012
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program 2013
USGS Climate Communication Fellowship Program 2016
Pathways Award, USF Latin Community Advisory Committee 2016

Statement of Research Interests
Raised in Puerto Rico and a proud boricua, Ileana was a competitive swimmer in high school and fell in love with marine life during open-water swims off the coast of the island. She completed a BSc from the University of Puerto Rico and transplanted to Florida for her graduate degree. Ileana is now a PhD Candidate interested in how anthropogenic climate change, and the ocean acidification that comes hand-in-hand with it, will affect predator-prey relationships, particularly between intertidal mussels and crabs. Her research has included developing and building climate-controlled aquarium systems and conducting laboratory-based ecological experiments. Ileana is also very interested in how we communicate and educate about these issues, so part of her dissertation focused on developing and assessing a climate change curriculum. As a science communicator, Ileana has also worked with several outreach and education programs, including working in the leadership team of the St. Petersburg Science Festival since 2014. She hopes to continue her work in Science Communication and Environmental Education, inspiring people to conserve and care for our natural environments.

 

Brittany Hall-Scharf, M.S.

MS Student (2012-2014)

Education
BS 2009 Florida State University
MS 2014 University of South Florida

Current: Extension Agent, Florida Sea Grant
Email: bhallscharf@ufl.edu

Statement of Research Interests
For Brittany’s masters research, she studied the trophodynamics of a generalist predatory fish (Spotted Seatrout, Cynoscion nebulosus). First, she analyzed how diet responded to changes in the seagrass coverage of Tampa Bay by comparing stomach contents from studies conducted in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. During that period of time, seagrass in Tampa Bay made an incredible recovery from losses experienced in the mid-twentieth century. Brittany found that the ontogentic shifts in diet of seatrout were generally conserved across studies, but that some prey were reflective of a change from phytoplankton to benthic basal resources, consistent with seagrass recovery. She followed the diet study with a two-stage experiment that found that Spotted Seatrout did not display preference between Pinfish (Lagodon rhomboides) and Clown Goby (Microgobius gulosus) prey, two morphologically- and behaviorally- different species.

 

Andrea Jerabek, M.S.

Visiting MS Student (2015)

Education
BS 2014 State University of New York College at Geneseo
MS 2015 Northeastern University

Current: Three Seas Program Manager, Northeastern University
Email: a.jerabek@northeastern.edu

Statement of Research Interests
Andrea came to the Fish Ecology Lab to complete a research-based internship in partial fulfillment of a MS from Northeastern University. In addition to being a wonderful colleague in the lab, participating on a number of different projects led by both Dr. Stallings and students, she developed a very nice experiment that tested the effects of different antifouling paints compared to manual scrubbing on settlement cages. She found that three paints performed well to reduce fouling of the cages during the initial six weeks of the experiment, but the efficacy of “ecofriendly” paint began to decrease during an extended deployment that lasted 14 weeks. The macro-community composition, biomass, and percent cover of settled organism on tiles within cages treated with copper-based paints (21% and 40% concentrations) were indistinguishable from tiles within the manually scrubbed cages. In contrast, settlement to tiles from the “ecofriendly” treatment was different in composition of macro-community and lower in biomass, suggesting the presence of local effects and therefore rendering it unsuitable for use in settlement experiments. The results of this study suggest that reduced-copper paints have the potential to serve as an alternative to manual maintenance, which may be useful for deployments in locations that are difficult to access on a frequent schedule.

 

Benjamin Kurth, M.S.

MS Student (2013-2016)

Education
BS 2011 Stetson University
MS 2016 University of South Florida

Current: Geospatial Technician, Quantum Spatial
Email: bkurth@mail.usf.edu

Awards

Paul Getting Memorial Fellowship 2014-2015
Knight Fellow 2016
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Honorable Mention 2014 & 2015

Statement of Research Interests
Ben was a masters student whose intent was to further his knowledge of fisheries biology and management, especially for recreationally important gamefish. Ben’s thesis focused on Atlantic Tarpon and had two important components. The first used a multi-year, genetic tagging database to better understand the life history and biology of juvenile and sub-adult Tarpon. The second component used chronologically-based stable isotope analysis of adult Tarpon eye lenses to better understand both juvenile and adult habitat use, movements, and trophic dynamics. Ben is from Tampa, FL and spends as much time on the water as he can for both academic and personal interests. He has worked as a biologist for Mote Marine Laboratory investigating cold kill effects on fish populations, with the Environmental Protection Agency studying the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone biogeochemistry, FWC’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in the Molecular Genetics laboratory, and currently is employed as a Geospatial Technician at Quantum Spatial.