Hey!
My name is Santiago Salinas and I am currently a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, working with Dr. Stephan Munch.
Education
- School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University (Stony Brook, NY)
- College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor, ME)
- Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific (British Columbia, Canada)
Curriculum vitae
Research interests
Phenotypic and transgenerational plasticity in fishes
I am interested in understanding the role of phenotypic and transgenerational plasticity, particularly in fishes. Ever since the modern synthesis, evolutionary biologists have been fascinated with genes and their frequencies, and any effect of the environment on organisms was simply dismissed as noise. In recent years, plasticity has been reassessed as a fundamental mechanism to cope with environmental changes. Phenotypic plasticity, which is now widely studied, refers to genotypes producing different phenotypes under different environmental conditions. Transgenerational plasticity, understudied in comparison, occurs when the environment experienced by the parents prior to fertilization directly translates, without DNA sequence alteration, into significant changes in the shape of offspring reaction norms, resulting in a significant interaction between parental and offspring environment effects. In my research, I explore the various ways in which phenotypic and transgenerational plasticity interact to cope with changes in the environment.
Intraspecific variation and the metabolic theory of ecology
The metabolic theory of ecology (MTE) contends that temperature and body size are fundamental in determining metabolic rate. In turn, metabolic rate has been found to scale predictably with a variety of phenomena (from developmental rate to community dynamics). A good overview of the MTE can be found here. With my advisor, Stephan Munch, we have shown that the MTE holds even at the intraspecific level along latitudinal gradients with respect to lifespan.
(Ok, without trying to sound sophisticated now: we gathered data people collected on how long cold-blooded critters live over large areas. We then used a model to see if we could predict, based on temperature alone, the lifespan of those same guys. Remarkably, just knowing the temperature where it occurs tells you a lot about how long an animal will live). We are now working on a couple of different projects related to the MTE.
Reproductive biology of northern Fundulus heteroclitus
The mummichog, Fundulus heteroclitus, is a widespread estuarine fish found along the eastern United States and Canada. Southern mummichog populations were observed to have a strong semilunar reproductive cycle, which allows females to position the fertilized eggs in the upper intertidal zone where they can develop aerially and avoid aquatic predators.
Along with Chris Petersen and others (YB, NT), I investigated the reproductive ecology of northern mummichogs, with particular emphasis on their reproductive cyclicity. Interestingly, this northern population spawns continuously during the short season. We also documented behavioral and oviposition-site selection patterns that differ from other published reports.
Publications
If interested, my Google Scholar profile is here
Journal articles
Salinas, S., K. Perez, T. Duffy, S. Sabatino, L. Hice, S.B. Munch, and D.O. Conover. 2012. Response of multiple traits to a moratorium after strong selective fishing. Evol. Appl. XX:XX-XX. [pdf]
Salinas, S. and S.B. Munch. 2012. Thermal legacies: transgenerational effects of temperature on growth in a vertebrate. Ecol. Lett. 15:159-163. [pdf]
* Cover article *
Petersen, C.W., S. Salinas, R.L. Preston, and G.W. Kidder III. 2010. Spawning periodicity and reproductive behavior of Fundulus heteroclitus in a New England salt marsh. Copeia 2010:203-210. [pdf]
Munch, S.B. and S. Salinas. 2009. Latitudinal variation in lifespan within species is explained by the metabolic theory of ecology. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 106:13860-13864. [pdf - supp. inf.]
Salinas, S., Y.J. Brandvain, R. Anderson, J. Marty, R.L. Preston, G.W. Kidder III, and C.W. Petersen. 2004. Reproductive ecology of Fundulus heteroclitus and Fundulus diaphanus in a New England watershed. Bull. MDIBL 43:115-117. [pdf]
Conference presentations
* Presenter in bold
Salinas, S., J.A. Siskidis, and S.B. Munch. Transgenerational plasticity in an estuarine fish and its implications for climate change. ThermAdapt Meeting. April 2011. Tartu, Estonia.
Salinas, S., J.A. Siskidis, and S.B. Munch. Transgenerational plasticity in an estuarine fish and its implications for climate change. American Society of Limnology and Oceanography Annual Meeting. February 2011. San Juan, Puerto Rico. [pdf]
* Best presentation award *
Salinas, S., J. Velasquez-Tibata, and S.B. Munch. Climate change, metabolism, and the future of life histories. Student Conference on Conservation Science - NY. November 2010. New York, New York. [pdf]
* Special mention *
Salinas, S., J.A. Siskidis, and S.B. Munch. Transgenerational plasticity in growth in the sheepshead minnow. American Fisheries Society Annual Meeting. September 2010. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. [pdf]
Salinas, S., J. Velasquez-Tibata, and S.B. Munch. Metabolism, temperature and the life histories of the future. New York Marine Sciences Consortium Annual Conference. September 2009. Bronx, New York. [pdf]
Perreti, C., S. Salinas, and S.B. Munch. Estimating impacts of power plant water withdrawal on fish populations: developing a novel Bayesian approach for calculating entrainment mortality. SCERP Environmental Symposium. May 2009. Southampton, New York. [pdf]
Salinas, S. and S.B. Munch. Assessing local adaptation in lifespan through the metabolic theory of ecology. Evolution Annual Meeting. June 2008. Minneapolis, Minnesota. [pdf]
Salinas, S. and S.B. Munch. Developing a novel Bayesian model for calculating entrainment mortality. SCERP Environmental Symposium. May 2008. Southampton, New York. [pdf]
Salinas, S. and S.B. Munch. Estimating impacts of power plant water withdrawal on fish populations. SCERP Environmental Symposium. May 2007. Southampton, New York.
Petersen, C.W., S. Salinas, G.W. Kidder III, and R.L. Preston. Reproductive ecology of Fundulus heteroclitus in a New England salt marsh. Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Annual Meeting. January 2005. San Diego, California. [pdf]
Salinas, S., Y.J. Brandvain, R. Anderson, J. Marty, G.W. Kidder III, R.L. Preston, and C.W. Petersen. Reproductive ecology of two species of Fundulus in a Maine watershed. 31st Maine Biological and Medical Sciences Symposium. April 2004. Salisbury Cove, Maine.
Brandvain, Y.J., S. Salinas, R. Anderson, J. Marty, G.W. Kidder III, R.L. Preston, and C.W. Petersen. Reproductive ecology of two species of Fundulus in a Maine watershed. 33rd Annual Marine Benthic Ecology Meeting. March 2004. Mobile, Alabama. [pdf]
Other contributions
Salinas, S. and D. Choksey. Geographic Information Systems map depicting feeding behavior of entangled whale and its relation to fishing area closures. Published in Johnson, T. 2005. Entanglements. University of Florida Press. [pdf]
Carbonneau, S.M., S. Salinas, D.W. Towle, and C.M. Smith. 2004. American lobster, Homarus americanus, hsp90 partial (1,008 bp) cDNA sequence. NCBI GenBank. Accession no. AY851302.
Word clouds
Media coverage
Salinas and Munch 2012
Munch and Salinas 2009
Photographs
I wish...
This section collects papers (+ 1 book) I wish like hell I had written/thought of. They are clever and very outside-the-boxy.
Can't wait for the chia pet follow-up experiment
Smart way to prove a point. It would also make for a fascinating lab in a fisheries class. [Lipinski and Roeleveld 1990]
Go red
So apparently contestants wearing red in four combat sports during the 2004 Olympics won more fights than their blue-clad counterparts. I bet that works for hair color, too... (Of course, someone had to reply and break my redheads-taking-over-the-world bubble). [Hill and Barton 2005]
Happy hour
There are many problems with this paper, but the fact that he actually gathered data on this is commendable. [Grim 2008]
Offside calls
I wish I had known about this paper back when I played soccer. I can see it so vividly... getting called offside, followed by my waving of the paper, yelling "Are you sure, Mr. Magoo?! You get the calls wrong 10% of the times... see, it's in Nature!" [Oudejans et al 2000]
F**king right
Very true, at least for me. But "damn" is hardly an obscenity. (And loved the part where psych students "participated in partial fulfillment of a course requirement". Is that even allowed?) [Scherer and Sagarin 2006]
Spices
What can I say? I'm a huge sucker for sociobiological stories (even if they are just-so) to begin with. And meshing evolutionary biology and gastronomy through cookbooks is simply brilliant. They had me at hello. [Billing and Sherman 1998]
Random walks
Describing the way people move around is pretty important. However, it has proven hard to put GPS tracking devices on people (ethics shmetics, I say). In comes wheresgeorge.com. This is a website to track where dollar bills have been, and these guys used it to model human traveling patterns. Cool. [Brockmann et al 2006]
Must have
Until I come up with my evolutionary biology stand-up routine, this is my go-to book for anyone asking how they can learn this stuff while having fun. (And no, I'm not nearly funny enough to come up with stand-up routines). [Dr. Tatiana's sex advice to all creation]
Latin pronunciations
I find it amusing when people from different countries pronounce scientific names. This guy nails it in the head: Anglo-Saxons should not be the ones determining Latin pronunciations. [Berland 2010]
Post-modernism…
A classic. 'Nuf said. (Here's the story). By the way, that's my favorite science hoax. Close second: the whole Isadore Nabi thing. [Sokal 1996]
They weren't very funny
Sure, her biographies are very good, but this paper's awesome. [Browne 2001]
'Concorde!'
Not many people recognize Dawkins' primary-literature writing style. Why can't I write like this: "The Concorde fallacy has great psychological appeal. Once one is sensitive to it, one frequently unmasks it in verbal discussions of evolutionary theory. Many an unprofitable line of speculation is nipped in the bud by the crushing rebuke 'Concorde!' Against this background, the reader may imagine our own consternation when we happened upon evidence that the digger wasps that we were studying for other reasons ... seemed to be behaving in exactly the way a Concordian theorist would have recommended. This paper tells the story, and finishes with our own attempt to come to terms with the result"? [Dawkins and Brockmann 1980]
Contact Me
Office
107 Dana Hall
School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY 11794-5000
santiago.salinas@stonybrook.edu