In October of 2010, the FSU Coastal & Marine Laboratory (FSUCML) welcomed a new visiting researcher, Cristina Lima Martinez from Vigo-Galicia, Spain. Cristina recently graduated from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) with a degree in Biology. She then won a highly competitive award (5% success rate) from the Spanish Ministry of Education that allowed her to come to the United States and enhance her research experience in marine systems.

Over the next ten months at FSUCML, Cristina will work in Dr. David Kimbro's laboratory to study the ecology of some of the world's largest and most diverse predatory gastropods. Building on the knowledge of this system produced in the 1960s by world-renowned ecologist, Dr. Robert Paine (University of Washington), Cristina will examine how predation and behavioral interactions among the diverse species of gastropods affect clams (prey of gastropods) and the water-filtration services that they provide for the shallow water marine systems near FSUCML.