{"id":380763,"date":"2022-12-01T06:06:43","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T20:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=380763"},"modified":"2022-12-01T06:06:43","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T20:06:43","slug":"uog-graduate-student-studying-guams-native-freshwater-eels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/uog-graduate-student-studying-guams-native-freshwater-eels\/","title":{"rendered":"UOG graduate student studying Guam\u2019s native freshwater eels\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Karina Mejia holds a freshwater eel. For her master\u2019s biology thesis at the University of Guam, she is looking into the genetics and migration of Guam\u2019s most common river eel.\u00a0(UNIVERSITY OF GUAM)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Karina Mejia, a graduate student studying biology at the University of Guam within the National Science Foundation EPSCoR program, is looking to answer some unknowns about Guam\u2019s most common river eel\u2014the giant mottled eel, or marbled eel.<\/p>\n

The species (Anguilla marmorata) could be sustainably managed as a local food source, but little is known about it on the island.<\/p>\n

Mejia wants to find out where in the ocean they spawn and what time of year they journey upstream in Guam\u2019s freshwater rivers\u2014both critical pieces of information in order to sustainably fish them in the wild or to raise them.<\/p>\n

Mejia and her research mentor, UOG associate professor of Biology Daniel Lindstrom, are also hoping to use a technique known as otolith microchemistry to trace their migration patterns.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have been catching them year-round. [\u2026] So that\u2019s why I\u2019m looking at the otoliths\u2014hopefully to trace back their movement throughout the ocean to where they were spawned,\u201d Mejia said.<\/p>\n

Mejia will be looking for native eels at Guam\u2019s river openings and encourages the public to share to\u00a0mejiak@gotritons.uog.edu\u00a0when and where they may have seen them.<\/p>\n

She hopes to have enough data by next fall.<\/p>\n

To read more, go to\u00a0https:\/\/www.uog.edu\/news-announcements\/2021-2022\/2022-uog-graduate-student-studying-guams-native-freshwater-eels.php\u00a0(UOG)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karina Mejia, a graduate student studying biology at the University of Guam within the National…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":380764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[51,445],"class_list":["post-380763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-guam","tag-uog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}