In the latest College of Natural Sciences Point of Discovery podcast, we talk with Philip Souza, a Ph.D. student in the lab of Simon Brandl at the Marine Science Institute, and a Stengl-Wyer fellow.
His research is focused on the sounds that fish along the Texas Gulf Coast make to attract mates or defend territory. He works in the Mission-Aransas Estuary near Port Aransas, whose oyster reefs and other habitats support rich communities of fish, many of which have a big impact on the Texas economy — including spotted sea trout, catfish, red drum and black drum. He’s developing ways to continuously record sound in the water to monitor the health of the ecosystem. As fate would have it, two years ago, his approach was put to the test.
Visit cns.utexas.edu/news/podcast/heartbeat-estuary for the full transcript.
