I am a senior at the University of California, Santa Cruz studying marine biology. I am especially interested in the anatomy, behavior, and physiology of large marine vertebrates. I am currently an undergraduate researcher in the Beltran Lab at UC Santa Cruz studying northern elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Park. Under the advisement of Dr. Beltran and a graduate student mentor, I am working on a senior thesis which studies the ontogeny of sexual size dimorphism in juvenile northern elephant seals by documenting characteristically dimorphic morphological traits (head, teeth, and flippers). I am also a NAUI Advanced Open Water SCUBA diver as well as an AAUS Scientific Diver.

Sexual-size dimorphism refers to size differences in morphological traits between sexes in the same species, often driven by sexual selection. Northern elephant seals (NES, Mirounga angustirostris) are one of the most sexually dimorphic marine mammals on the planet. Juvenile development (ontogeny) is a critical period during which size differences often emerge in this species. However, it is unclear exactly when sexual-size dimorphism appears during ontogeny, how development differs between sex classes, and which physical traits reflect sexual divergence. To investigate the ontogeny of sexual-size dimorphism, I obtained images of the head, teeth, and flippers of young-of-the-year, 1-, 2-, and 3-year-old male and female NES at Año Nuevo Natural Reserve for photogrammetric analysis (n = 96). The preliminary results of this study indicate that age significantly affects head, teeth, and flipper sizes, whereas sex is not a strong driver of morphologic differences within age classes. This study is ongoing, with data analysis currently in progress; results are expected to be available within the next few months. Understanding the ontogeny of sexual-size dimorphism in juvenile northern elephant seals will allow future research to further investigate other sex-specific characteristics including physiological and behavioral divergence in this specie