REYN YOSHIOKA
I'm a marine (disease) ecologist with broad interests in invertebrate biodiversity, parasitism, and trophic ecology. My research includes topics such as environment-disease interactions, the roles pathogens and parasites play in ecosystems, and marine trophic ecology. This stems from training in disease ecology and trophic ecology labs.
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I am currently a research scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine. I work with the Quantitative Marine Disease Ecology Lab (QMoDEL), led by Maya Groner, and the Tandy Center for Ocean Forecasting, led by Nick Record. We are wrapping up a project aiming to understand epizootic shell disease in American lobster in the context of the warming Gulf of Maine, but we have a range of other projects in a variety of systems!
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Prior to my time at Bigelow Laboratory, I was a pro tem instructor in the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon, and just prior to that a PhD candidate in the Coastal Trophic Ecology Lab of Aaron Galloway, PhD at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB), University of Oregon. The CTELab uses fatty acids as biomarkers in trophic ecology studies; however, my personal spin on this field focused on using the tool to understand host-parasite relationships.
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My website is named for my inspiration into marine ecology: the Hawaiian anchialine pool shrimp, Halocaridina rubra, or ʻŌpaeʻula. When I was growing up, these tiny shrimp in "self-contained" bottle ecosystems were popular pets. Although I'm not a huge fan of the jars now, they were my first foray into ecology. Because of this, H. rubra will always have a soft spot in my heart. The shrimp on the footer is H. rubra (my home page has a different anchialine pool shrimp, Metabetaeus lohena).
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