Catalina Pimiento
Catalina Pimiento
Address
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
CTPA
Apartado Postal 0843-03092
Balboa, Ancon Panama
Phone: +570 212-8057
pimientoc@si.edu
Research Interests
My interests are in the relationship of marine ecology to morphological development. To date, my emphasis has been on migrating marine animals such as whale sharks, humpback whales and sea turtles. My work has focused on their migration pathways, population ecology, reproduction, behavior, life history and conservation. I would now like to approach these issues from the perspective of developmental biology, paleontology and genetics, in order to understand the mechanisms that underlie the morphological changes upon which selection has acted during the evolution, in particular, I would like focus on the mechanisms involved in development of the shark skeletal and electrosensory systems.
Past Research
Occurrence, size and sexes of the whale shark (Rhincodon typus) population in Isla Contoy National Park, Quintana Roo, Mexico.
For my undergraduate thesis research project, I conducted a descriptive study of the whale shark population occurring in Isla Contoy National Park, in the Mexican Caribbean where R. typus are observed every summer. During four months of field work, I counted whale sharks in order to evaluate the existence of a peak in their abundance. I determined maturity proportions based on measurements of their sizes and established sex proportions based on the direct observation of their genital structures underwater.
Current Research
Whale shark tagging in Las Perlas Archipelago, Panama
I am currently conducting research in The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), Panama, at the Remote Sensing and Telemetry Lab, under the advisement of Dr. Hector Guzman. Our area of interest is Las Perlas Archipelago on the Pacific side of the Republic of Panama. With this particular study, we are tracking the movements of 20 whale sharks using satellite tags and acoustic tags. We would like to know where the whale sharks go and what drives their movements; this data will help inform and guide efforts towards the conservation of this species through the establishment and maintenance of marine protected areas such as in Las Perlas. With this research we hope to improve knowledge of whale sharks’ ecology and demographic connectivity throughout the region. I also collaborate with Dr. Guzman in a research project at our area of interest where we endeavor to track the migration routes 4 sea turtles using satellite tags.
Future Research Plans
Why don’t sharks produce bone?
Over the past year, my interest in shark biology has expanded to a new level of organization; so far I have concentrated on the organism and population levels, however my interest in paleontology and genetics has grown and I would like to understand the cellular and genetic basis of some key aspects of shark anatomy that contribute to their specialized ecology. My work on shark migration has led to a new interest in locomotion, both in terms of their navigational abilities (electroreception) and their skeletal design. I am interested in investigating the mechanisms involved in skeletal development in sharks. Despite their designation as “cartilaginous”, it has been proposed that modern condrichthyans such as sharks probably evolved from ancestral vertebrates that contained bone. In fact, fossils reveal that primitive condrichthyans produced bone in their endoskeleton.
The endoskeleton of living sharks has been reported to contain bone-like tissue in the perichondrium of vertebral neural arches. Is this cartilaginous condition a primitive or a derived character? I would like to look for genetic signatures of sharks’ bony ancestry by isolating bone genes and looking at whether they are active in the development of the shark skeleton. My plans are to then test the function of these genes to determine why the shark skeleton develops only as cartilage and fails to form bone. Identifying such molecular genetic differences will uncover the mechanism responsible for a major evolutionary event that occurred early in shark evolution. It is interesting that many of the same genes are involved in skeletal and sensory development, and my plans are to investigate how the regulation of these genetic pathways has been altered during the evolution of sharks.