Leticia Cavole

I am passionate about understanding how fish and fishers prosper through time and space. I am particularly interested in using fish otoliths as tools to ”travel back in time” to reconstruct historical water parameters, but also to gain insight about the life history of fish. During my PhD research, I worked with shallow water fishes of mangrove ecosystems from the Galápagos Archipelago and the Gulf of California, and deep-sea fishes of Oxygen Minimum Zones from Southern California and the Namibian shelf. Using their otoliths, I obtained population and microchemical data in order to understand environmental conditions (such as oxygen levels, temperature, and pH), population connectivity, and growth patterns. Now, in my postdoctoral research at the OGFL, I am using a similar otolith approach to examine habitat use and life history diversity of the longfin smelt (Spirinchus thaleichthys) and the delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus), which are threatened and critically endangered small pelagic estuarine fishes of the San Francisco Estuary. In collaboration with state agencies, this project aims to create science-based policies to prevent the collapse of these sentinel species at the hub of California’s water distribution system.

Degrees:

2007-2012 B.Sc., Federal University of Rio Grande (Brazil)

2012-2014 M.Sc., Federal University of Rio Grande (Brazil)

2015-2021 Ph.D. Scripps Institution of Oceanography (USA)

Research Interests: 

Fish ecology; Conservation Science; Biochronology; Otolith microchemistry; Traditional Ecological Knowledge