FAU Marine Lab Students Present (and win awards!) Near and Far

Author: Sam Trail
Date: April 18, 2023

Spring is a great time for our researchers to share their work with their peers at two major sea turtle conferences! The Southeast Regional Sea Turtle Meeting (SERSTM) took place in Orange Beach, Alabama from February 28 – March 2 of this year, and the International Sea Turtle Symposium (ISTS) convened in Cartagena, Colombia from March 18 – 24^th. This marks the first time both conferences have been held in-person since February of 2020, and our researchers were thrilled to rub elbows with their peers and mentors! Read below to see the groundbreaking work our students presented at these conferences and the awards they won!

SERSTM highlights

Students from Dr. Jeanette Wyneken’s and Dr. Sarah Milton’s lab headed to the “Flora-Bama” shores to present their research. Lisa Esposito, a master’s student in the Milton Lab, gave an oral presentation on her thesis research entitled: Relocation and flood impacts on loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) nest success.

Other students showed wonderful poster presentations including:

• Ivana Lezcano (Ph.D. candidate in the Wyneken Lab): Is the shell good armor? Biomechanical traits of sea turtle shells through ontogeny
• Emily Turla (Ph.D. student in the Wyneken Lab and FAU Marine Lab Coordinator): New perspectives on embryonic mortality of the leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) in Southeastern Florida
• Heather Seaman (Ph.D. candidate in the Milton Lab): The impacts of nest microenvironment on leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) hatchling performance and morphology
• Lexi Moyle (M.S. student in the Milton Lab): Incubation temperature, morphology, and loggerhead (Caretta caretta) sea turtle hatchling hydrodynamics
• Christina Cortes (M.S. student in the Milton Lab): Surveying antibiotic resistance of gram-negative bacteria isolated from wild-caught and rehabilitated green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) of Florida

With her poster, Christina was the winner of the Boyd Lyon Student Award for Best Poster at the conference. Way to go, Christina!

ISTS highlights

Students from three FAU Marine Lab turtle labs (Wyneken, Milton, and Salmon) attended and shared their work with other sea turtle biologists from around the globe at ISTS! Presentations were given in English and Spanish with translating headsets available to maximize understanding and comradery amongst the international audience.

Heather Seaman, Lexi Moyle, and Christina Cortes shared their work (again – highlighted above) with this international audience. Additional presentations from the FAU Marine Lab included:

• Jeanette Wyneken was an invited speaker on a special session about The Ultimate Goal of Hatcheries: Finding a balance between business and conservation.
• Sam Trail (Ph.D. student in the Wyneken Lab) gave an oral presentation entitled More than just ‘flapping’ flippers: a new understanding of powerstroking in neonate loggerhead sea turtles.
• Gabriella Carvajal (Ph.D. candidate in the Wyneken Lab) presented a poster entitled Current methods for determining hatchling sex and potential future directions
• Samantha Kuschke (DVM, Ph.D. candidate, and visiting researcher at the FAU Marine Lab) presented a poster entitled Impacts of a warming world: How incubation temperatures relate to blood values and preliminary microbiota findings in leatherback sea turtle hatchlings and post hatchlings.

With her poster, Samantha was the winner of the Archie Carr Student Award for Best Poster at the conference. Way to go, Sam!