Bryan Huerta-Beltrán

I am pursuing my graduate degree at the University of Southern Mississippi under the advisement of Dr. Nicole Phillips. My research project is being conducted in Mexico, where I’m studying guitarfish of the genus Pseudobatos. Currently, there are nine recognized guitarfish species in this genus worldwide. In Mexico we are fortune to have eight of them. According to the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species, seven of these eight species are threatened. Guitarfish in Mexico are being targeted by artisanal and commercial fisheries and there is poor documentation of which species are being harvested. I previously worked as an extension program assistant in the Mississippi State University Marine Fisheries Ecology Program under Dr. J. Marcus Drymon.