Monica Garduño

Monica Garduño, originally from Mexico, is a postgraduate student in fish ecology. Towards the end of a three-year project into fish morphometry, she lives in SCENE while investigating the evolution of species of fish that can show large variables in their head shape. ‘I’ve been trying to find different morphologies in two species of fish – sticklebacks and arctic charr. Fish morphometry is the study of the form and other external characteristics of fish. Do they have big eyes or small eyes, a very pointed or very flat snout? The main cause of that change is the diet. Sometimes if the fish eats a very small prey item, the mouth is small and if the prey is big, the mouth is also big. There is a correlation there.

I found SCENE on the internet and also had recommendations from people who had studied here before. In Mexico, there are no facilities like this – it’s not easy to work with live fish. Here there are tanks with all the facilities for feeding, cleaning and keeping the fish alive for a year or more, so I am learning a lot of vital techniques. It is very, very important to learn how to study live animals for the conservation of species.’