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          PEOPLE |
 
 Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology costa@biology.ucsc.edu • B.A., University of California, Los Angeles
Focus: The adaptations of marine mammals and seabirds to life in the marine environment, especially the movements, foraging ecology and energetics of pinnipeds and seabirds. 
 Links between movement, survival, diving, and interannual variation and applying State-Space methods for assessing elephant seal movements with respect to sea surface temperature.  Navigation and search behaviors of the northern elephant seal, specifically the reliable cues used by these animals to accurately navigate thousands of kilometers of open ocean habitat.  Data Manager and Application Developer for Marine Mammals and Birds, Tagging of Pacific Predators. Data systems architecture and programming, research support, visualization, and analytical software applications design.  Diving physiology and behavior in relation to water temperature of California and Galapagos sea lions.
Sara Maxwell
 I'm particularly fascinated with physiological processes operating at an animal's limits- animals that "push the envelope". My current research explores the limits of fasting physiology in elephant seals.  Pinniped physiological ecology and adaptations that allow an animal to inhabit its particular ecological niche, particularly lactation physiology and the environmental factors that impact provisioning of young.  Kimberly Goetz
 Development of diving behavior in northern elephant seals, particularly how age and diving behavior are related to feeding success in females, and how oxygen stores relate to different diving behaviors  Justine Jackson-Ricketts
 The ecology of northern elephant seals, including how seals may accumulate contaminants during foraging trips, their impact on prey populations, and how their foraging locations and movements align with other upper-trophic level marine species in the north Pacific.  Behavioral ecology, the ability of species to adapt to changing and dynamic environments, and the mechanisms seabirds use to navigate the "featureless" surface of the oceans to find patchily distributed food.  Chandra Goetsch
 Conservation biology and biodiversity research and linking conservation science with management. My current focus is to utilize tagging data to identify multispecies oceanic hotspots for wide-ranging animals in the Pacific.  Ecology of marine birds, specifically how the non-breeding season influences the summer breeding season and survivorship.  Trophic ecology of naive elephant seals. I hope to develop these skills to focus on conservation science and management of marine migratory megafauna combining physiological and spacial indicators to assess open ocean trophic ecology and predator dynamics. |
