Lake Erie Center
: Visiting Researchers

Mr. Fabio Lobato
Graduate Student

Mr. Fabio Lobato from Brasil worked in Dr. Stepien's GLGL laboratory during summer 2008, sponsored by an NSF Deepfin grant award for visiting graduate students to learn new fish systematic techniques.  Fabio is a graduate student in the Laboratory of Biogeography and Marine Macroecology at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil.  Fabio's sponsor is Dr. Sergio Floeter, who is collaborating with Dr. Stepien on phylogenetic and population genetic relationships of the Atlantic blenny Labrisomus nuchipinnis and its relatives.  Fabio learned DNA techniques, including extraction, PCR amplication of mitochodrial and nuclear genes, DNA sequencing, and data analysis.  Fabio went sampling and collecting with Lake Erie Center researchers on several occasions, including visiting Stone Lab and out on the LEC vessels.  Fabio worked closely with GLGL DNA technician Doug Murphy.  Fabio is back in Brazil completing his master's degree thesis. To learn more about Fabio, check out his website.

Dr. Yuriy Kvach
Visiting Researcher

Dr. Yuriy Kvach from Ukraine was a guest postdoctoral researcher hosted by Dr. Carol Stepien and her Great Lakes Genetics Laboratory at the Lake Erie Center in fall 2006. Dr. Kvach's home institution is the Odessa Branch of the Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, located on the Black Sea. Drs. Stepien and Kvach collected gobies together in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov (which are their native habitats), for use in comparative genetics studies by Dr. Stepien's laboratory. Her Great Lakes Genetics laboratory used the samples to trace the genetic origins of the round and tubenose gobies that invaded the Great Lakes in about 1990. Dr. Kvach is a specialist on fish parasites, and compared the parasites of the round and tubenose gobies in the Great Lakes with their parasites in the native range. A popular ecological theory is that invasive species have fewer parasites in new habitats than they do in native areas, which was supported by the results of this joint study. Dr. Stepien requested and received supplementary funding from the National Science Foundation (DEB-0630172 ) to support his visit. Drs. Kvach and Stepien published two 2008 papers on the parasites of round gobies in Journal of Applied Ichthyology and the Journal of Great Lakes Research.

Mr. Vasily Boldyrev
Graduate Student

Carol Stepien and her Great Lakes Genetics Laboratory Lake Erie Center hosted graduate student Mr. Vasily Boldyrev of Volgograd State Pedagogical University and the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia, during fall 2006. Dr. Stepien obtained supplementary funding from the National Science Foundation for Vasily to visit and participate in her NSF research project on "Molecular Systematics, Biogeography, and Invasion Identity of Neogobiin Fishes". Vasily thus successfully worked to identify morphological characters for goby fishes that were indicated by the DNA data. Two of these species, the round and tubenose gobies, have invaded the North American Great Lakes through accidental ballast water transfers, making this taxonomic work very important to understanding their invasion ecology.

Vasily assisted the lab with collections of gobies in Russia. He had never before visited the U.S. Dr. Stepien and her Ph.D. student Matt Neilson are writing a taxonomic key with Vasily Boldyrev to this important group of Ponto-Caspian fishes for publication in both English and Russian journals. Collaborations with eastern European scientists, including Vasily, thus are facilitating international scientific cooperation and training in phylogenetic analyses and DNA applications. Vasily also enjoyed traveling to Niagara Falls and Michigan, as well as visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

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