Maria Del Mar Palacios
PhD graduate
BSc (Universidad del Valle, Colombia) • PhD (JCU)
James Cook University. AU
maria.palaciosotero@my.jcu.edu.au
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University Townsville
Queensland 4811 Australia
Phone: 61 7 4781 4000
Email: info@coralcoe.org.au
PhD graduate
BSc (Universidad del Valle, Colombia) • PhD (JCU)
James Cook University. AU
maria.palaciosotero@my.jcu.edu.au
Personal website: http://www.mariadelmar-palacios.com/
Profile @ Google Scholar
Maria grew up in Cali (Colombia) and completed her BSc in Biology at Universidad del Valle. Before graduating in 2010, she fell in love with coral reef fish while studying the structure and composition of fish communities from Gorgona and Malpelo Islands (Eastern tropical Pacific). Guided by professor Fernando Zapata and associated to the Coral Reef Ecology research group, Maria won a research grant to study the impacts of pufferfish corallivory on pocilloporid reefs and led numerous research projects describing the coral reefs of the Colombian Pacific Coast (funded by WWF and TNC). In 2013 she moved to Australia to begin her Phd at JCU under the supervision of Professor Mark McCormick. Her research focuses on interactions among reef fish mesopredators and how these can be modified by the fear responses to top predators and by intra/ interspecific guild dynamics
Controlling Mesopredators: importance of intraguild behavioural interactions in trophic cascades
Populations of large predators have been overfished and decimated from oceans worldwide. Loss of predation force (top down control) has triggered trophic cascades and phase shifts due to the explosion of small consumers that deplete resource prey species. Using a reef fish food web I will experimentally address how the effect of small predators on their resource prey can be modified by the fear response to top predators and by intra/ interspecific guild interactions. Understanding the behavioural interactions among predators and its impact on trophic cascades is indispensable to predict consequences of predator loss and design appropriate management policies on coral reefs
Principal supervisor: Prof Mark McComick
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Study: Small Fish comforted by big predators – The scientist
Less fish stress for youngsters when big barrier reef predators nearby– Fishens magazine
Baby fish are comforted by the presence of large marine predators– Phys.org
Stress relief on coral reef fish – 7 local news Townsville (skip to 6:03 for story)
Baby fish “less stressed” around large ocean predators – Brisbane times
Baby fish breathe easier around large predators- CoE for Coral Reef Studies & James Cook University
Controlling Mesopredators: importance of intraguild behavioural interactions in trophic cascades (2016) – ACRS newsletter
Fear tactics in fish – Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation
An international group of scientists is predicting markedly different outcomes for different species of coral reef fishes under climate change – and have made substantial progress on picking the ‘
New research has found as climate change causes the world’s oceans to warm, baby sharks are born smaller, exhausted, undernourished and into environments that are already difficult for them to survi
A new study shows the coastal protection coral reefs currently provide will start eroding by the end of the century, as the world continues to warm and the oceans acidify. A team of researchers led
A team of scientists led by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) won one of the nation’s top science awards at tonight’s ‘Oscars of Australian science’, the Eureka P
Abstract: It is a little over a decade since research commenced into the effects of anthropogenic ocean acidification on marine fishes. In that time, we have learned that projected end-of-century
Abstract: Increased uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has caused the world’s ocean to become more acidic. Different marine habitats are known to have varying ranges of CO2 across mul
Abstract: The Allen Coral Atlas (http://allencoralatlas.org) partnership uses high-resolution satellite imagery, machine learning, and field data to map and monitor the world’s coral reefs at unp
Abstract: Climate change is causing the average surface temperature of the oceans to rise and increasing the frequency and intensity of marine heatwaves. In addition, absorption of additional CO2
Abstract: Marine environments are a concealing medium, where observations of natural fish behavior are challenging. In particular, the geographic and depth distributions of migratory top predators ar
Abstract: Invasive species management can be the the subject of debate in many countries due to conflicting ecological, ethical, economic, and social reasons, especially when dealing with a species s
Abstract: Ocean acidification, the increase in seawater CO2 with all its associated consequences, is relatively well understood in open oceans. In shelf seas such as the Great Barrier Reef, processe
Abstract: The backdrop of legends and movies, the deep sea has always been unfathomable because we had no idea what existed there. Once thought to be barren of life, we now know this couldn’t be
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University Townsville
Queensland 4811 Australia
Phone: 61 7 4781 4000
Email: info@coralcoe.org.au