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Biologist Susan Foster and her students study the threespine stickleback in the lab and in the field. These small fish provide big insights into evolutionary biology. |
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Meet the Researchers: Making an Impact
Interview with Alejandra Jaramillo
Alejandra Jaramillo's interest in biology and environmental policy took her on a journey
to Alaska and British Columbia, funded in part by an
Anton Fellowship.
She spent four weeks studying a small fish known as the
threespine
stickleback and issues related to its preservation. In a recent conversation, summarized
below, she discussed her work and her trip.
What prompted your interest in biology and the natural environment?
I have been interested in biology and the environment ever since I can remember. When I was growing up, my dad had a shrimp farm, and he'd take me to visit it. Later he became the director for a research lab that investigated the diseases that affect shrimp.. Therefore I was always around animals and other aspects of the natural environment. I've also been very interested in conservation, because living in a place such as Latin America, where you are constantly exposed to rich habitats and natural places, one comes to appreciate the importance of preserving the environment.
Before I came to college I had the opportunity to work in Panama with a research team from the Smithsonian Institution, under the direction of Dr. Lessios. He was studying sea urchins and sea stars, which I found very interesting, So when I came to Clark I decided to get involved with the biology department. Mostly I wanted to work in evolution and animal behavior, but I also wanted to learn about conservation.
How did you become involved in research at Clark?
I became very motivated by the work Professor Susan Foster was doing on evolutionary biology by studying a fish called the threespine stickleback. I approached her toward the end of my freshman year, and ended up working in her research lab during my sophomore year. I was assigned to work helping one of her graduate students, Rich King, collect some data for his dissertation.
I noticed when reading your Anton Fellowship proposal that you initially found the study of sticklebacks rather boring!
Yes, that's definitely true! When I worked with the Smithsonian team I was in constant contact with organisms in their natural environment. So when I first came to Clark, I was kind of shocked to work with fish that were preserved in formaldehyde. At first all I did was count stickleback eggs, a rather intense job and in a way kind of boring. But eventually I started reading about sticklebacks, and realized that they are very valuable species for the study of evolutionary behavior and life history. So once I got more into the details, I decided they weren't so bad after all!
I understand that there are both ocean and freshwater populations of stickleback that live in Alaska and western Canada.
Yes. Right now we're especially concerned with the decline in some of the freshwater populations. Many of the lakes and ponds where they live are being stocked with trout that prey on them.
The marine populations have a kind of armor consisting of pelvic spines and three spines on the dorsal area. That's where their name comes from. But many of the freshwater populations have reduced or lost their armor in the absence of natural predators. Now, when those ponds are stocked with trout, the resident sticklebacks can't protect themselves. When a stickleback population becomes extinct, a piece of their evolutionary puzzle is lost.
In addition to their importance for scientific study, are sticklebacks also important as part of the food chain?
Yes. For example, sticklebacks provide an important source of food for nesting and migrating birds. But unfortunately, because sticklebacks are not a game species and have no commercial or recreational value, very few people want to protect them.
What prompted you to apply for an Anton Fellowship?
I took a seminar in evolution (BIOL243) with Dr. Foster, and we talked a lot about the importance of conservation. I learned about the endangered populations of stickleback: I think Dr. Foster has already lost three study populations as a result of trout stocking. From a colleague who works at the University of British Columbia, we learned that the Canadian government has been working on a proposal to protect sticklebacks in Canada. Dr. Foster and I thought we could draft a similar proposal for submission to the Alaskan government to protect their stickleback populations, upon which most of Dr. Foster's study is based. Under Dr. Foster's sponsorship, I decided to apply for Anton Fellowship funding.
What did your project consist of?
While in BC, I met with the people in charge of drafting the Canadian proposal. They explained how it would work, and how it would be monitored by people living around the protected areas. Their proposal involved not only the government, but the local communities as well. We thought community involvement would be really important in the Alaskan context, too. Alaskans tend to be very protective of their environment, and if you don't involve them, there's no way you can carry out a conservation plan.
Then we traveled to Alaska for three weeks to learn more about the stickleback populations there, and to get an understanding of what aspects of the Canadian conservation proposal would and would not make sense in an Alaskan context. We presented information that had been gathered about the conservation proposal we wanted to draft.
We then drafted a proposal and presented it to Dr. von Hippel at the University of Alaska in Anchorage, who's in charge of presenting it to the committee on wildlife protection.
We did a lot of work on this trip, but we also enjoyed ourselves so much. One of Dr. Foster's graduate students, Rich King, also came to conduct his fieldwork. He's been going to Alaska ever since he was an undergraduate at the University of Arkansas, so he knows Alaska like the back of his hand. We got to see wolves, bears, whales and other marine mammals. It was an amazing trip.
Your proposal sounds like it might make an impact.
We hope it does. It's hard to try to convince people to protect sticklebacks in a way that's legally binding. And then, if and when it does become law, the problem will be to insure compliance.
This project sounds like a good bridge between your majors in biology and environmental science and policy.
Yes. In preparing the proposal I was able to combine fifteen years worth of Dr. Foster's work on sticklebacks with knowledge from my policy drafting classes. And it was a great experience to see what the real world is about when it comes to conservation. How in theory it looks so perfect and beautiful, and how the application can be so difficult.
You seem to really like research.
I do. I enjoy it a lot. I think it's one of the best ways of learning. You get exposed to primary literature and you get to touch and see what's going on. I think it's a well-rounded experience. You get both theory and application, and you get to see where the problems are in each.
Do you know what you want to do when you graduate?
I'd like to get my Ph.D., although whether it will be in biology or conservation policy I'm not sure. I think that whatever I do, I'd like to apply it in Latin America. Latin America is in great need of scientists, especially those focusing on biology and conservation. And with the other problems going on in Latin America, conservation is often the last thing on people's minds.
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Additional Resources
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A well-rounded experience