🌊 MEET THE TEAM 🌊

Dr. Nicole Esteban, Assoc. Prof. in Marine Biology 🌱

Nicole is a marine ecologist at Swansea University passionate about protecting species and their habitats e.g. sea turtles, climate change impacts, fish production in coastal habitats 🐟tinyurl.com/2ufm97ca

I PASSED MY PhD VIVA! 💫🐢

Thank you to my supervisors, research group & examiners for making the day so special! I’m so grateful for my family, partner, friends, supervisors, funders and volunteers for the support on this journey - it wouldn’t have been possible without you🩵

We are the Marine Conservation & Ecology Lab at
Swansea University headed by Nicole Esteban🌊

Over the next few weeks, we will introduce the MarCEL team and their amazing research on topics from salt marshes in South Wales to sea turtles on tropical islands🐟🏝️

Watch this space!👀

Recently PhD student Sophia Coveney presented some of her research at the 🌊🐢ISTS Sea Turtle Symposium. She discussed the use of #DNAmetabarcoding 🧬to characterise #seaturtle diet, important considerations of the technique and its potential in sea turtle foraging ecology🐢

Some of the MarCEL team showcased their research at the 🌊🐢ISTS Sea Turtle Symposium with PhD student Nupur Kale presenting her study on methodological noise in space use estimates of sea turtles 🐢🌊🛰️

Follow MarCEL Swansea for research group updates!

Last week some of the MarCEL team attended 🌊🐢ISTS Sea Turtle Symposium. PhD candidate Holly Stokes delivered a presentation on predation of #seaturtle eggs by rats and crabs 🦀🐀 and a poster on sea turtle nest site selection🏝️
Paper links👇
tinyurl.com/phpp7x34
tinyurl.com/3vebb5ch

Our friends at University of Plymouth are advertising an exciting #PhD that uses a combination of bioacoustics, drones & AI to monitor the health and social behaviour of bottlenose dolphins 🐬

Field & desk-based components with time between Plymouth & Scotland ✨

➡️ plymouth.ac.uk/schools/school…

Last week I attended my first in person 🌊🐢ISTS Sea Turtle Symposium ! I presented two chapters from my PhD, one presentation on the predation of sea turtle eggs by rats and crabs 🦀 and a poster on sea turtle nest site selection 🏝️ What a wonderful welcoming and supportive community! 🐢

It’s finally time! My research group reached sufficient size to be named (by popular vote) Swansea Marine Conservation Ecology Lab & gain an impressive logo (thanks Sophia Coveney). Follow us to meet the team & for research updates on X & Instagram MarCEL Swansea

Rapid color changes in marlins may prevent the predators from impaling one another during group attacks.

Learn more: scim.ag/60c

📰Interesting article about latest research from Swansea University turtle team led by Nicole Esteban: all adult female hawksbill #turtles tracked from Diego Garcia in 2018-2020 migrated to unexpected deep foraging habitats, all in #Chagos #MPA
Read more⬇️
theconversation.com/tracking-tropi…
#CCT 🐢

Congrats on PhD chapter published Holly Stokes - using many hours of foot patrols during months of beach surveys in 2022 to quantify green turtle clutch size on oviposition & emergence, reporting rats & coconut crabs as key predators in Chagos Archipelago ⛴ 🌏 Marine Science 🐠 🐟

What are the predators of sea turtle eggs? 🤔

🌍 38 predators globally. Mammals, crabs & goannas.

🥚 Green turtle egg #predation in #chagos . To our knowledge the 1st record of coconut crab and invasive rat predation.

🐀 Support rat eradication in Chagos

Women and girls play a critical role in science and technology #STEM

Led by Heather Koldewey #WomenInLeadership , we’re very pleased to share that 62% of our programme team are #WomenInScience , with an incredible 70% of our students being #WomenInScience ! 👩‍🔬

Women in Science Day

#CCT 🐢 SPECIES OF THE MONTH

In June, we're shining a spotlight on the sea turtles found in the #Chagos (and on our logo!)🌊
Read this #seaturtle ecology article by Swansea Uni. PhD student Holly Stokes in this year's #Chagos News (and the whole issue)⬇️
chagos-trust.org/.../documents/…

Thanks to Will Allen for organising the first annual biosciences PGR conference, a great day full of interesting talks (and people!) I was very grateful to have my talk 'how macroplastic impacts the reproductive behaviour of zebrafish' voted as the best talk by a masters student🥰

PGR poster shortlisted! Congrats to Holly Stokes for excellent participation in Swansea Research PGR festival & presenting 2 studies: nest predation & use of drones, satellite tracking & mark-recapture to estimate turtle population size

Back in March, we went for an amazing snorkel at Nguthungulli (Julien Rocks, Byron Bay) on Bundjalung Sea Country. This site is a very important aggregation site for both reef Mantas and Leopard (Zebra) Sharks 🦈 Holly Stokes Laura Smith Caitlin Smith Sarah McCulloch

It doesn’t get much better than this 😍 Reef mantas, hawksbill #turtle , leopard sharks, wobbegong #sharks , porcupine fish, the list goes on 💙 Julian Rocks, Byron Bay, NSW.