Meeting #15 Pregnant manta rays & Dr. Austin Gallagher

Thank you so much to both Gigi and Austin for the amazing talks on some truly innovative research!

Some highlights from the Gigi’s talk included:

• A rundown on her master’s research on the fecundity of reef manta rays

• Gigi is looking at seasonal and spatial patterns in the reproduction of manta rays

• She is working on a photo ID database collected by Project Manta

Some highlights from Austin’s talk included:

• Discussing the partnership with a Bahamian tiger shark that led to the discovery of a massive seagrass meadow (93 thousand square kilometers)

• Introduction to his research organization, Beneath The Waves

• Camera bio loggers onto tiger sharks to understand fine-scale movements

• Mapped massive seagrass meadows using satellite data

• Also found that tiger sharks dive deep into the Twilight Zone, which prompted further exploration into this

• Used “deep sea landers” (a type of BRUV) to observe the deep sea