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Contact me: erinbaum@hawaii.edu 

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I am a graduate student at the University of Hawaii in the Zoology Department. I received my bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of Kansas. While I was at KU I had an amazing opportunity to do systematics and taxonomy research on a group of fishes called the Beryciformes. I also was able to work with children as an assistant preschool teacher. It has always been my goal to work as both a scientist and a teacher, and the GK-12 program has allowed me to do just that. 

Erin and 6th grade student in classroom

My research here at the University of Hawaii focuses on the behavioral ecology of small fishes. I am particularly interested in resource use and territoriality. I am currently looking at a small cryptic fish, the mangrove blenny,  Omobranchus rotundiceps obliquus. O.r.obliquus is an invasive species in the sheltered areas of Oahu.

Mangrove-lined channel
This sheltered mangrove community in Kaneohe Bay provides an ideal habitat for the mangrove blenny, and for researchers who want to study them. 
Small fishes pose a unique problem in the field of invasion biology. They possess several life history characteristics, like short times to maturity, and high rates of increase that may allow them to establish and spread more easily than larger fishes. Small fishes are more likely to be overlooked both as natives and as invaders, so scientific workers are often not aware of what is going on in a community invaded by a small fish until it is too late. In Hawaii, most studies of invasive fish have focused on larger species, but we have some smaller invaders that need to be looked at, also. The mangrove blenny has been in Oahu since the 1950’s, and has spread around this island, but to none of the other high islands. A second blenny, the tasseled blenny, has been in South Kaneohe Bay since the 1970’s, and a third invader, the fang-toothed blenny, has just been reported from the Halawa estuary. 

To add to the problem, many of the native small fishes are also overlooked, even though they are an essential part of the community. One native goby was described only last year, from the fouling community right outside the HIMB marine lab! The time is long past to begin considering these issues. One way we can learn about the effects of small invaders on the native community is to examine their behavior in the community, which is what I have chosen to do in my research, examining the establishment and partitioning of territory by mangrove blennies, and resource utilization of food and space.

Learn more about  blennies

Learn more about invasive fishes

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Erin snorkeling in La Paz, Baja California Sur
photo courtesy of Kanesa Duncan