Marine Mammal Institute

My PhD research explored the impact of 20^th century commercial whaling on the genetic diversity of great whale populations in the South Atlantic. I extracted DNA from whale bones collected from early whaling stations established in the Southern Hemisphere at the beginning of the 20th century. Using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region sequencing, I identified the whale bones to species and compared mtDNA diversity of the historical bone samples to contemporary samples of South Atlantic humpack, Southern Hemisphere fin and Antarctic blue whales. I shot-gun sequenced the DNA extracts of the historical Antarctic blue whale samples to assess the endogenous content of DNA in the historcial Antarctic blue whale bone extracts and assemble mtDNA genomes from the shot-gun sequencing reads. Using these data, I further explored the impact of exploitation on genetic diversity of the Antarctic blue whale through a comparison of historcial and contemporary Antarctic blue whale mtDNA genomes. 

Following my PhD, I was a National Research Council research associate with NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental laboratory (PMEL). My research correlated the genetic identify and the acoustic identity of blue whales in the eastern North Pacific to increase understanding of blue whale population structure. Population structure of blue whales within and between ocean basins has been described using genetic diversity and distinct acoustic call types, but how these two descriptions of diversity are correlated remains undescribed. Working with bioacoustician Dr. Bob Dziak at NOAA PMEL, we correlated descriptions of genetic diversity of blue whale populations to the distinct acoustic call types at the individual level in the eastern North Pacific.