Aya Murakami

Address:
Department of Forest Sciences
3041-2424 Main Mall, UBC
Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4
Email: aya33_at_interchange.ubc.ca (insert @ for _at_ )

Position: M.Sc. Candidate

Study Area: Climate variation and stream communities systems

Project: Linking stream and forest food webs: the effects of aquatic insects on riparian predators and their terrestrial prey.

My MSc. research is focused on summer climate variability and its effect on macroinvertebrate communities in forested headwater streams. My plan is to model the effect of precipitation regime shifts (results in water depth variations) on communities. This model will be tested against the historical abiotic and community data and used to generate future scenarios. My general research interests involve population and community ecology tied into conservation biology.

Examples of Past Research Experiences
– Population Dynamics: Estimated Humpback whale population size of British Columbia coast utilizing photo-identification (Malaspina University-College now Vancouver Island University)
– Ecological Parasitology: Coevolutionary geographic mosaic of Mediterranean Striped Seabream and isopod parasite (University College Dublin)
– Adaptation: Cryptic patterns in Shield limpet of west coast Vancouver Island (Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre)

Murakami