Pauline Narvaez

Food preferences of cleaner organisms and the impact of cleaning interactions on pathogen transmission.

Pauline Narvaez completed her MSc in 2013 in Lisbon, Portugal, on cleaner fish behaviour and fish ectoparasites in the Northeastern Atlantic. From 2014-2015 she took part in several scientific projects and travelled to several countries (Portugal, The Bahamas and Brazil) that helped her to build scientific collaborations in the area of marine fish and parasite ecology.

By late 2016 and throughout 2017, she had the opportunity to participate in three extended field trips to the Great Barrier Reef (Lizard Island Research Station, Australia) examining the relationship between ectoparasites, their fish hosts and cleaner fish with Dr Alexandra Grutter and Dr Paul Sikkel. From March to June 2017, she volunteered in the Marine Parasitology Laboratory at James Cook University, where she took part in various experiments.

Pauline will be pursuing her research interests in cleaner organisms for her PhD and will be supervised by Dr Kate Hutson and co-supervised by Dr Mark McCormick.

#marine cleaner organisms #parasites-host interaction #ectoparasites #ecology #microbiome