Maya McElfish

Southern California boasts high nearshore fish diversity (~60 species!). Yet for most species in this system, we have no data on the primary sensory modalities used to complete everyday behaviors. I overlap behavior, morphology, and neural anatomy to generate a sensory catalogue for 20 common species in this system, providing a predictive framework for understanding how environmental change may impact behavior.

Climatic shifts can influence the sensory landscape of aquatic environments, as abiotic factors (e.g., temperature, pH, turbidity) often impact how stimuli are transmitted or received by fishes. For most Southern California nearshore marine fishes, there is limited data on primary sensory modalities important to each species. This gap is a detriment to predicting how environmental changes may impact sensory behavior. Using three methodologies, I create a sensory catalogue for common fishes in this system. In the field, I deploy baited cameras to document behavioral sensitivity to odor cues, and from the footage I can hypothesize which species rely on smell. Using museum specimens, I then measure visual structures for 20 common species, lending insight into the range of visual acuity within the fish community. Lastly, using CT imagery, I measure neural anatomy to visualize how internal processing centers align with the behavioral and morphological data. Together, these methods allow us to generate a novel sensory index for these species, which can be used as a predictive framework for understanding how environmental change may impact behavior.