Emily Nazario

Emily Nazario’s research relates physiology, biogeography, and approaches in targeted spatial management to develop conservation solutions for marine predators. She addresses stressors including vessel disturbance, human-wildlife conflict, and climate change induced deoxygenation using a mix of experimental, quantitative, and social science approaches.

Emily Nazario is a Ph.D. candidate at UC Santa Cruz in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department advised by Drs. Terrie Williams, Elliott Hazen, Don Croll, and Malin Pinsky. She is also a student in the Coastal Science and Policy program, where she works to connect scientific outputs to conservation solutions. Marine systems are losing their marine predators on a global scale, and her research seeks to gain powerful conservation insights through working at the intersection of marine predator physiology, biogeography (species distributions through space and time), and approaches in targeted spatial conservation. For her dissertation, she explores these interdisciplinary relationships among these fields through three chapters: 1) investigating post-dive surface recovery requirements for bottlenose dolphins and beluga whales; 2) identifying the role dissolved oxygen and a metabolic parameter play in shaping mako shark distributions; and 3) discussing the successes and challenges of dynamic ocean management as presented in the literature and through end-user surveys.