Tom Kashiwagi graduates with PhD

Dr_Tom_Sept_2014_croppedCongratulations to Tom Kashiwagi who has completed his PhD at the University of Queensland.

Tom was supervised by Jennifer Ovenden and Mike Bennett.

Tom studied the genetic signature of speciation in two species of manta rays (Manta alfredi and M. birostris). Using a long-term (over 30 years) database of underwater observations on M. alfredi in Japan, he estimated important demographic parameters such as reproductive rates and abundance. He also evaluated the concordance among inferences from field observations, capture-mark-recapture analyses and genetically and demographically determined effective population size estimates.