Hi Aquatic Sentinels!🐬

2025 has brought me great news! I finally finished my PhD studies... join me to read a summary of this story that lasted 4 years👇

🦈🦀🐢🐳🐙 I hope you enjoy it!🐟🦈🦀🐢🐳

Photos by Dafne Macías📸
📍Cancún, México

Since I was a child, my dream was to be a marine biologist, however, I never imagined studying a PhD😧

Time goes by very quickly when you enjoy what you do, and without a doubt, this was no exception. It was 4 years of study and I can say that I really enjoyed it. These studies were in the area of ​​animal behavior of dolphins, without a doubt, they are amazing animals from which we can still learn a lot more...
And for that reason, I have come to the conclusion that the more we learn and the more steps we take, the more we realize that we still have a lot to learn...👇

Photo by Juan Bacab G.📸
📍Cancún, México

I just finished a PhD in marine sciences, and yet I still feel that there are thousands of things to learn. Each family, each genus, even each species is like a world of scientific research. Even talking about something as specific as "the study of the behavior of Indo-Pacific dolphins" has thousands of questions to answer🤔

So, what is the purpose of studying a postgraduate degree? I think it is precisely to realize the need for research in the world. It is said that we know a little more than 10% of life in the sea. How do we get to know that 10%? Of course, through research.

Knowledge, science and innovation🔬 should be essential for a country, unfortunately in LATAM this is not essential. This also leads to a "brain drain" in the country, and people who should have decent and stable jobs end up leaving the country. Even so, I have been fortunate to meet incredible people in the scientific field, people who break the traditional "evil scientist" scheme.

📍Cancún, México

📍Manzanillo, México in XXXV meet of marine mastozoology of Mexico

👉Join us until the end of this post to find out all the details👈...

_{Adapted by @juanbg}

A little bit of my research and status🔍

For the PhD program we need to finish two investigations, in my case, I chose to work with something called anticipatory behavior in dolphins and the second article was about the diversity of behavior they can exhibit🐬

One of the great challenges for those of us who are trained in scientific research is to have the ability to synthesize and explain our findings to anyone, I assure you that it is not an easy task! But it can be achieved...

Photo by Carlos Tamayo📸
📍Yucatan, México in Research Forum of the Autonomous University of Yucatan

I had the opportunity to present my research in different forums, national conferences, meetings and even taught several classes at different universities and it is clear to me that one of the most important things in the world of science is not to show others all the knowledge you have, but to transmit your passion, the objectives of your work and how that helps the conservation of species.🐟🐋🐢

Chapter 1: Dolphins that anticipate what is coming🤔🐬

Humans live in a world of routines: routines for work, routines for school, routines for exercise, etc.🏃‍♀ And many times we know what is coming because through these routines we anticipate what follows in our day.
Do animals also have the ability to anticipate?🤔 The answer is yes, in places like dolphinariums, animals anticipate a daily routine, this can be very valuable for scientists and dolphin keepers. In theory, the more anticipation we observe then the more participation there will be, we came to the conclusion that dolphins can define their preferences through anticipatory behavior... do they prefer to spend time with trainers? or do they simply prefer to eat or play? All these preferences can be known through this behavior.

Photo by Juan Bacab G.📸
📍Riviera Maya, México

In my research we observed that many times the preference does not always go hand in hand with wanting to eat. Many times they prefer to play or eat! or they prefer to spend time with humans than to eat! and this can even vary for each individual. Our results showed a greater preference for food versus play, but the differences were small👈📊

Chapter 2: Dolphins behave normally when they are not in training sessions🐬

For some years now it has been believed that dolphins living under human care will never again show how they really behave in the wild. Behavioral diversity studies have shown that we can observe a large number of behaviors when there are no humans around.

Within this diversity we observe jumping, interactions between them, vocalizations, swimming in groups, staying on the bottom, and even aggression between them.

Photo by Juan Bacab G.📸
📍Cancún, México

In this chapter, our results follow this trend, as the dolphins that were part of our study showed a large number of behaviors (even more than other studies) and if we compare different species of dolphins we will find significant differences in the frequency of each of the behaviors they display. For me, all of this was very interesting!😀

In search of the ideal job🔍

What's next for me❓ First, wait for the date for my final exam and get my degree. But now I'm looking for my "ideal" job. Why do I say it this way? Because unfortunately here in LATAM the options are limited and often with low salaries.

But I'm not discouraged, I know that something very good will come, and within these things, my intention is to work much more for the Aquatic Sentinels community, so that it becomes a strong, stable project full of people willing to share relevant and reliable information... all this with the goal of caring for and preserving our aquatic species around the world, this is my wish...🐬🐢🦈

Photo by Yessica Mendiola📸
📍Cancún, México

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