Anais Ranica
Position: Visiting Research Masters Student (completed 2019)
Education: AgroSup University, Dijon, France
Masters Project: "Indirect effect of cleaner presence on the benthos"
The objective of my project was to test the hypothesis of whether the manipulated presence of cleaner fish over 13-15 years, indirectly affects the benthic community. The idea being that since cleaner fish affect the abundance of many fishes, including ones that interact with the benthos – like grazing herbivores, that this could result in an indirect effect of cleaners on the benthos. This involved processing samples from a longterm experiment involving much sampling of the reef benthos, using pavers on reefs for 2 years, on which benthic organisms grow. The dataset was composed of photos of the pavers taken at 3 different periods between years 13 and 15 post-cleaner removal. I used digital analysis of photos of pavers and quantified the different benthic types growing on them using specialized software called PhotoQuad.
Education: AgroSup University, Dijon, France
Masters Project: "Indirect effect of cleaner presence on the benthos"
The objective of my project was to test the hypothesis of whether the manipulated presence of cleaner fish over 13-15 years, indirectly affects the benthic community. The idea being that since cleaner fish affect the abundance of many fishes, including ones that interact with the benthos – like grazing herbivores, that this could result in an indirect effect of cleaners on the benthos. This involved processing samples from a longterm experiment involving much sampling of the reef benthos, using pavers on reefs for 2 years, on which benthic organisms grow. The dataset was composed of photos of the pavers taken at 3 different periods between years 13 and 15 post-cleaner removal. I used digital analysis of photos of pavers and quantified the different benthic types growing on them using specialized software called PhotoQuad.
