Jasmine Manny, MS
Part-time Biology Professor ⋅ Aquatic & Fisheries Science ⋅ Parasite Ecology ⋅ Microbial Community Ecology
Thanks for visiting my site!
A little about me...
I currently teach introductory biology courses to both college students and high-schoolers. I'm a Solano County native and have also briefly inhabited other areas in the Western U.S. like Reno, NV and the San Fernando Valley, CA before I moved here to the Sacramento and Yolo County area. I studied Biology and obtained my BS at Sac State and MS at Cal State, Northridge. After graduation, I worked at CA DWR as an environmental scientist for a few years before going to graduate school. My interests are aquatic ecology and fisheries biology and enhancing student learning outcomes. I like to play volleyball recreationally and go on a hike occasionally :)
A Slime Serenade?
The Wonders of Fish Mucus, Physiology & TEK
My lab group (Todgham Lab) specializes in ecophysiology, which is the study of the relationships between the physiological aspects of organisms and their environment. This comic represents a research topic that I would like to pursue for my doctoral dissertation, which is to investigate how developing Chinook Salmon (species of ecological concern) cope with environmental stressors when preparing for outmigration to the ocean. My current plan is to focus on the skin mucosal microbiome in developing Chinook and potential links to physiological parameters involved with environmental stress and disease tolerance. It is important to note that Marine Sisk, the fisheries supervisor (and daughter of Chief Caleen) of the Winnemum Wintu tribe, plays a key role in helping protect winter-run Chinook in Northern California. The tribe recently signed a co-stewardship agreement with NOAA Fisheries and several other entities to bring Chinook back and restore the land. Much of the background information in this science comic that I created is sourced from the NOAA Fisheries FAQ page on Chinook Salmon. In my research, I also hope to learn and incoroporate current wisdom and explore overlapping goals of fellow researchers at Davis, agencies, and the local and regional community, with a particular focus on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (see here: The Orginal Salmon Stewards) and intersections with western science.
Living in the Muck:
Santa Monica Bay Flatfish
The aim of my master's thesis project was to assess the extent of physiological stress on benthic fish inhabiting specific regions of an ecosystem that has been impacted by long-term inputs of treated and untreated wastewater. Flatfish live in contaminated marine sediments where pollutants like heavy metals and chlorinated hydrocarbons accumulate near wastewater discharge sites. Parasitic infection can influence how fish respond to pollution by increasing or decreasing the susceptibility of hosts to the effects of wastewater pollutants. The fish gut microbial community composition can serve as a useful additional measure to standard physiological stress markers. For example, gut microbes play a pivotal role in host health by regulating homeostasis, immunity, metabolism, and susceptibility to environmental contaminants. Thus, the gut microbiome may be influenced by parasitic infection and pollutant exposure.
The Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant in Santa Monica Bay (SMB) is the largest wastewater treatment plant in the western United States, and has historically contributed millions of gallons of domestic, commercial, and industrial treated effluent daily into the bay. Pacific sanddabs, Citharichthys sordidus, were collected from Santa Monica Bay and analyzed for parasites, gut microbiota, and somatic indices. I hypothesized that there would be significant changes in gut microbial community composition along a pollution gradient and among fish with different levels of parasite burden. Determining the current biological zone of impact of wastewater inputs throughout marine coastal areas is important for improving future management of benthic communities in Southern California. Stay tuned for what I found. I will be submitting to a peer-reviewed journal very soon!
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