Nasheika Guyah from UWI shares her larval fish expertise with NF1502!

Sheika joyfully sorts a plankton sample in the wetlab

*, Sheika, Sarah, Alex @ RSMAS in '2012

Nasheika L. Guyah is a PhD candidate at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus in lovely Jamaica! ‘Sheika’ and the ELH lab first met when she came to the ELH Miami Lab to improve her taxonomy skills for a few weeks in 2012! 

some of the stations sampled in the northern part of Jamaica!

Sheika shared with the blog: “There is a paucity of larval fish data for Jamaica and as such the focus of my research is to identify, enumerate and determine the distribution of larval fish in Jamaica which may lead to their integration into Jamaica's fisheries protection and management policies. This could ultimately assist in the replenishment of Jamaica's commercially important species and the recovery of the fisheries. My research focuses on developing fisheries monitoring protocols for Special Fisheries Conservation Areas (SFCAs) (also known as Marine Reserves) in Jamaica and involves a holistic approach to assessing the different life stages of commercial fish species within SFCAs. My project [PhD] involves working with the community stakeholders and fishermen, focusing on bridging the gap between science and the need for monitoring.

Sheika runs the MOCNESS

Aras and Sheika deploy CTD

This cruise has provided a great opportunity to explore the Caribbean. I have gained research experience and met amazing researchers. I now have been trained on how to use/deploy multiple equipment such as the MOCNESS (above) , CTD (right), Nueston net and Bongo net! As well as analyzing plankton data. This cruise presents a tremendous opportunity in sampling Jamaica's offshore and coastal waters using more advanced technology and bigger nets! We now have information on most of the unexplored areas offshore Jamaica's North coast.  The information on the physico-chemical properties as well as the ichthyoplankton data will be useful in getting a better idea of potential recruitment of commercially important fish species on the North Coast of Jamaica and may help to identify critical areas that are worth protecting.”