Meet the California Crew

Donna Kline


Donna is in the Master’s Program at California State University of Monterey Bay. She will be receiving her second Master’s, but this time in the area of Coastal and Watershed, Science and Policy. Her first Master's was from MLML in Marine Science. Donna completed her undergraduate degree from University of Missouri in Biology. After receiving her Bachelor’s Degree, Donna became an Officer in the Navy. While stationed in San Diego, she became a Navy diver with the marine mammal unit. She trained sea lions to recover objects from depths up to 800 ft.

Her goal on this cruise is to document the information gained from the trawls and respirometer deployments. Her role is to collect the data to answer the policy makers’ questions. She is like the middle person in between the policy makers and the scientists. She is also currently working at the Institute of Applied Marine Ecology.

For more information on the Institute of Applied Marine Ecology, please visit http://sep.csumb.edu/iame/.


Mariah Boyle


Mariah is currently finishing her Master’s Program at MLML in Science of Marine Science. She received her undergraduate degree from Florida Institute of Technology in Marine Biology. Mariah’s passion is sharks!! Her favorite shark is the Tiger Shark, but her second is the Great White!!! =)

She also works at the Pacific Shark Research Center. Her study is on the Roughtail Skate. This skate is found in deep waters, 500-2500 meters. There is not much known information about this particular skate. Mariah is studying the diet of this skate. She dissects the stomach. Then she identifies the stomach contents and weighs the material. Tissue is also taken to run chemical analysis to find out where they feed on the food web.

For more information on the Pacific Shark Research Center, please visit
http://psrc.mlml.calstate.edu/.


Shaara Ainsley


Shaara is currently finishing her Master’s Program at Moss Landing Marine Lab (MLML) in Science of Marine Science. She received her undergraduate degree from University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) in marine biology and ecology. Shaara is also working at the Pacific Shark Research Center.

Shaara’s thesis paper in on the study of skates. She always had a passion for sharks, skates, and rays since was she was young. Shaara’s favorite shark is the Scalloped Hammerhead shark. Her study is on the skate’s age & growth and reproduction. It’s very difficult to identify the age of sharks, skates, and rays unlike other fish. Fish have an otolith bone in their head that is similar to a human’s inner ear. As the fish grows, the otolith gets more layers. It’s like how you can identify the age of a tree by counting the rings on the trunk.

Unfortunately, sharks, skates, and rays do not have the otolith bone like other fish. They have no bones at all, only cartilage. This makes it even more challenging to identify their age. One way to identify their age is by sectioning off their vertebrae. The vertebra is cut in half and the bands are count to identify the age.

Shaara is only studying one particular skate species, the Bering Skate. She is comparing the Bering Skate that live in the Bering Sea to the Bering Skate that live in the Gulf of Alaska.

For more information on the Pacific Shark Research Center, please visit http://psrc.mlml.calstate.edu/.



“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”