The Marlin Maven:
Analyzing fish samples around the globe

By Science Writing Intern Paige Bellamy

There are whirrs and beeps, mouse clicks and machine groans throughout the airy lab. Wiry plants line the window sills, and creased, jam-packed notebooks are stacked on the shelf above the black lab bench. Hands wrapped in blue latex gloves reach for a small white box. A microtube top opens with a quiet pop, and a pipet dives into the tube to extract DNA for analysis.

This tube is one of over 1,200 collected by Nadya Mamoozadeh, a Virginia Sea Grant (VASG) Graduate Research Fellow, and PhD candidate at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS). She has spent the last four years amassing a collection of DNA samples from the far corners of the globe in the hopes of informing marlin management in the near future.

Explore her project by clicking the graphic at right to access this ArcGIS Story Map.