Manuela Gonzalez Suarez
mgs-cielo-azul.bsky.social
Manuela Gonzalez Suarez
@mgs-cielo-azul.bsky.social

Quantitative ecologist, conservation & population dynamics. EcCo lab PI. Assoc Prof at Uni. of Reading, UK. She/her.
https://sites.google.com/site/manuelagonzalezsuarez/Home

Environmental science 80%
Geography 20%

We think we should protect Xanthos!

Xanthos is geographically restricted, looks & behaves differently, even if apparently "the same" genetically as the most widely distributed sea snake, we owe to protect this Golfo Dulce endemic sea snake

We could lose biodiversity if we just focus on genes

This puzzle is relevant beyond defining a taxon

Currently H. platurus xanthos is listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List www.iucnredlist.org/es/species/2...

Yet, genetically could be clustered with H. platurus, listed as Least Concern

Should we still protect Xanthos 🐍?
👇
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
Established in 1964, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has evolved to become the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of animal, fungi and plant specie...
www.iucnredlist.org

Yet genetic analyses of 1000s of SNPs show no population structure! 🤔

What is happening?

We do not know but divergence may be too recent to show a genetic signal, differences may occur in very few genes not detected in our SNPs analyses, differences could be epigenetic...
👇

The Golfo dulce yellow sea Hydrophis platurus xanthos🐍 (on the photo) is morphologically 100% diagnosable by color, size, tail shape, and scale counts.

It is geographically isolated in Costa Rica and behaves differently from its relative the yellow-bellied sea 🐍 Hydrophis platurus platurus
👇

What a pickle! What makes a distinct taxon? What should we protect?

One new paper led by @brookebiologist.bsky.social gives us food for thought 🌎🧪

Morphology, ecology and behaviour of the Golfo Dulce yellow sea 🐍 tell us one story...

genetics 🧬 tell us another

doi.org/10.1093/zool...
👇
doi.org

And kudos to the whole cosupervisory team
@cpcarmona.bsky.social @josephtobias.bsky.social
@expecocons.bsky.social
& Chris Venditti

It was great to work with you all!
Super happy that @kerrys189.bsky.social passed her viva with no corrections!! 🥳🥳🥳

Congratulations, Dr. Stewart!!

The EcCo lab will miss you, but we know you are off to do amazing things

Thanks to the excellent examiners @alexpigot.bsky.social & @vlboult.bsky.social
🧵New paper + open database drop!
The Marine Organismal Body Size ( #MOBS ) Database is now live—85,000+ marine species, from plankton to whales, with standardized size data.
A huge leap for biodiversity, conservation, and climate science. #science #marinelife onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
MOBS 1.0: A Database of Interspecific Variation in Marine Organismal Body Sizes
Motivation Body size is a fundamental trait influencing an organism's life history, ecology, physiology and evolutionary dynamics. While extensive body-size databases exist for terrestrial vertebrat...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Carlos P. Carmona

New paper out on how human activities impact taxonomic vs functional biodiversity, led by @kerrys189.bsky.social
New paper!
"Threat reduction must be coupled with targeted recovery programmes to conserve global bird diversity" www.nature.com/articles/s41....

Great working with @mgs-cielo-azul.bsky.social, @josephtobias.bsky.social, @cpcarmona.bsky.social, @expecocons.bsky.social, Chris Venditti and Jo Baker.
Threat reduction must be coupled with targeted recovery programmes to conserve global bird diversity - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Projections of extinctions of bird species and losses of functional diversity over the next 100 years suggest that even immediate and widespread threat abatement would be insufficient to prevent losse...
www.nature.com

Reposted by Jaanus Suurväli

Studying thousands of species from plants to birds we find life is organised similarly.
The rule is simple: in every region on Earth, most species cluster together in small 'hotspot' areas, then gradually spread outward with fewer and fewer species able to survive farther away from these hotspots.

What a pleasure to examine PhDs like this one, great science and people

Also a return to my first academic institution, I finished my studies in UAM in June 2000, leaving to start an adventure in graduate school in the USA.
Sonia Llorente defended her thesis brilliantly. Congratulations Dr Sonia!
Thanks to @mgs-cielo-azul.bsky.social @fmazcarate.bsky.social & Fernanda Alves Martins fir being part of the committee, and for the great discussion you raised!
#proudsupervisor
Sonia Llorente defended her thesis brilliantly. Congratulations Dr Sonia!
Thanks to @mgs-cielo-azul.bsky.social @fmazcarate.bsky.social & Fernanda Alves Martins fir being part of the committee, and for the great discussion you raised!
#proudsupervisor

Our School of Biological Sciences is hiring.
Lecturer in Invertebrate Zoology
jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...
Lecturer in Invertebrate Zoology:Whiteknights Reading UK
jobs.reading.ac.uk

Our School of Biological Sciences is hiring.
Lecturer in Field Ecology
jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...
Lecturer in Field Ecology:Whiteknights Reading UK
jobs.reading.ac.uk