TEAM

Principal Investigator

Mauricio Cantor is a behavioural ecologist interested in the dynamics of social, cultural and ecological systems and other networked biological phenomena. His empirical research focus on marine mammals as research models due to their behavioral diversity, learning ability and social complexity —not to mention the exciting fieldwork challenges that come with studying them. Mauricio got a BSc in Biological Sciences and a MSc in Ecology in Brazil, and a PhD in Biology in Canada. After some postdoctoral appointments in Brazil, Germany and Switzerland, he is now an Assistant Professor at the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Sciences, and at the Marine Mammal Institute, at Oregon State University, USA, where he leads the LABIRINTO

 

“We are committed to anti-racism in everything we do, and acknowledge that anti-racism is a path toward dismantling other forms of oppression, including inequities related to gender, sexual orientation, class, ability, religion, or age.”

“Everyone has the opportunity to participate in big decisions. We intentionally seek out different perspectives, including minority opinion of all kinds.”

“We strive to understand where the system is functional and dysfunctional in serving all audiences. We strive for a system that is equitable to all.”

 

TEAM Members

Postdoctoral researchers
THersh

Dr. Taylor Hersh

2023 –  present: Postdoctoral scholar at the Marine Mammal Institute

Institution: Oregon State University

Advisers: Dr. Mauricio Cantor, Dr. Kate Stafford

Projects: Social communication in bottlenose dolphins and bowhead whales

 

What is she up to? 

I am a bioacoustician broadly interested in the interplay among vocal complexity, social complexity, and culture in animals. Much of my past research has focused on measuring how animal communication varies over space and time, as well as developing new methods for classifying vocalizations and deducing population structure from acoustic data. With LABIRINTO, I am investigating dolphin social communication during intraspecific cooperative foraging tasks and bowhead whale song diversity in different populations. I received a PhD in Biology from Dalhousie University and did my first postdoc in the Comparative Bioacoustics Group at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.

PhD students

Stephane Polyane Gomes de Moura, BSc, MSc

2019-present, PhD student at the Graduate Programme in Coastal and Oceanic Systems

Institutions: Universidade Federal do Paraná, UFPR, Brazil, with a research exchange visit completed at the Oregon State University, USA

Supervisor: Dr. Camila Domit
Co-supervisor: Dr. Mauricio Cantor

Thesis: Distribution and spatial dynamics of Guiana dolphins, Sotalia guianensis, and the potential vulnerability to impacts on the Paraná coast, southern Brazil 

What is she up to?

I’m studying the spatial dynamics and habitat selection of Guiana dolphins on the Paraná Coast, southern Brazil, and how these parameters are affected by anthropic activities. My main interests are in population and behavioral ecology, including topics such as behavior and group structure; photo-identification; population parameters; residence patterns; distribution and spatial dynamics; habitat use; habitat selection; habitat modeling; ecological traps; and cetaceans vulnerability to anthropic impacts. I always loved the ocean, and working for its conservation is a personal accomplishment.

Michaela Kratofil, BSc, MSc

2021-present, PhD student at Graduate Program in Wildlife Sciences

Institution: Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University

Supervisors: Dr. Mauricio Cantor, Dr. Robin Baird

Thesis: Movement ecology of Hawaiian false killer whales: Influence of the physical environment and social structure, with implications for management

What is she up to? 

I am a NSF GRFP Fellow at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. Leading up to graduate school, I worked as a research assistant at Cascadia Research Collective, a non-profit organization conducting research on marine mammal populations off the US West Coast and Hawaiian Islands, and continue to collaborate with CRC on my thesis research. I’m broadly interested in applied ecological research and conservation, but have a particular interest in the population and movement ecology of marine mammals. Through my current and future research, I aim to use quantitative techniques to better understand how both the physical and social environments shape animal movement, and what implications these have towards management objectives. My work to date has primarily consisted of analyzing telemetry data for research initiatives on Hawaiian odontocetes, although I’m involved in a number of different studies concerning odontocete stock structure and management in Hawai‘i. Thus far my research has entertained a variety of conservation themes, including ecotoxicology, fisheries bycatch, mid-frequency sonar exposure-response, and species-habitat modeling.

Daiane Santana Marcondes, BSc, MSc

2022-present, PhD student at Graduate Program in Coastal and Oceanic Systems

Institution: Centro de Estudos do Mar, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil, with a research exchange visit at the Oregon State University

Supervisor: Dr. Mauricio Cantor

Co-supervisor: Dr. Camila Domit

Thesis: Social structure and acoustic repertoire of Guiana dolphins in the Paranaguá Estuarine Complex, southern Brazil 

What is she up to? 

Daiane investigates the relationship between acoustic behavior and social structure of Guiana dolphins, and how the exposure to anthropogenic activities can disrupt both social and acoustic repertoires.

Gabriel Fraga da Fonseca, BSc, MSc

2022-present, PhD student at Graduate Program in Coastal and Oceanic Systems

Institution: Centro de Estudos do Mar, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil, with a research exchange visit at the Oregon State University

Supervisor: Dr. Camila Domit,
Co-supervisors: Dr. Maikon di Domenico, Dr. Mauricio Cantor

Thesis: Spatiotemporal patterns of sea turtle mortality in the Southern Atlantic

What is he up to? 

Gabriel investigates the spatio-temporal distribution of sea turtle stranding events in southeastern and southern Brazil, by applying a range of modelling techniques to a comprehensive database.

joao

João Victor Silva do Valle Pereira, MSc

2024-present, PhD student

Institution: Oregon State University

Supervisor: Dr. Mauricio Cantor

Thesis: Behavioral mechanisms, population consequences, and ecological resilience of dolphin specialized foraging behavior

What is he up to? 

I am a biologist and have a Master’s degree in Ecology (2021) from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil. My main areas of expertise and research are behavioral ecology, social structure, and cetaceans and artisanal fishers behavior. My PhD work will combine archival and new empirical data to address the behavioral mechanisms of specialized foraging tactics of bottlenose dolphins in Florida Bay and estimate their consequences for population dynamics. I will also develop agent-based models to infer the resilience of the dolphins’ foraging tactics to sea level rise and climate change. 

MSc students

Kyra Bankhead, BSc

2022-present, MSc student in Wildlife Sciences

Institution: Oregon State University, USA

Supervisor: Dr. Mauricio Cantor

Co-supervisors: Dr. Randall Wells, Dr. Katie McHugh

Thesis: The diffusion dynamics of human-induced food provisioning on Sarasota dolphins

What is she up to? 

I received my Bachelor’s degree with a marine emphasis at Western Washington University, where I worked in Dr. Acevedo-Gutierrez’s Marine Mammal Ecology lab. I developed an immense interest in marine mammal behavioral ecology, and started researching cultural transmission in cetaceans where I came across many of Dr. Cantor’s papers. Thereafter, I obtained my current position in Dr. Cantor’s Lab for Animal Behavioral Interaction Research in the Ocean, and am currently investigating the spreading dynamics of human-induced food provisioning on Sarasota dolphins. The major goal of my study is to identify the mechanism by which key individual dolphins spread the begging behavior in Sarasota to help stop the conditioning of dolphins to direct and indirect provisioning by humans. Apart from the lab, I spend my time outside, specifically at the beach swimming and scuba diving! You can find more information on my thesis project on my GitHub at https://github.com/bankheak/Dolphins

Mahmud Rahman, BSc, MSc

2022-present, MSc student in Wildlife Sciences

Institution: Oregon State University, USA

Supervisor: Dr. Mauricio Cantor

Thesis: Risk-taking behavior among bottlenose dolphins: individual variation and social influence 

What is he up to? 

Mahmud is an international M.Sc. student, coming from a riverine country Bangladesh where the largest population of Ganges River dolphins live. He has a bachelor degree in Fisheries and became interested in dolphins while working with Wildlife Conservation Society. His primary job was building a citizen science fishermen network to collect data on by-catch of cetaceans (e.g., Ganges River dolphins, Irrawaddy dolphins, Humpback dolphins). Being passionate about electronics, programming, and behavioral ecology, he realized that advanced technology can be used to research mapping behavioral networks. This excites him the most and has pushed him to pursue an M.Sc. in the Labirinto lab. His research will be investigating risk taking dolphins in a residential bottlenose population in the Florida Keys and their influence on other dolphins. His research project is supported by Mary Lou and Bruce Mate Marine Mammal Fellowship.

Fernanda Fecci, BSc

2022-present, MSc student at the Graduate Programme in Coastal and Oceanic Systems

Institution: Universidade Federal do Paraná, UFPR, Brazil

Supervisor: Dr. Camila Domit
Co-supervisor: Dr. Mauricio Cantor

Thesis: Anthropogenic disturbance on parental care of Guiana dolphins

What is she up to? 

Fernanda combines behavioural sampling with drone imaging analyses to investigate the influence of anthropogenic activities on the parental care of Guiana dolphins at the Paranaguá Estuarine Complex, southern Brazil

Tainá de Souza Duarte Nogueira, BSc

2020-present, MSc student at Graduate Program in Ecology

Institution: Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil

Supervisor: Dr. Marcos Rossi-Santos

Co-supervisor: Dr. Mauricio Cantor

Thesis: Social organization of Guiana dolphin in the Todos os Santos Bay

What is she up to? 

During her master’s Tainá will investigate the social structure of the Guiana dolphin population (Sotalia guianensis) that inhabits the Bay of Todos os Santos in Bahia, Brazil, using social proximity data and individual photo identification. In addition, she will compare aspects of the social organization, such as group composition and size, across populations, relating social patterns with environmental descriptors and resources availability along the distribution of the species.

Alumni

Dr. Alexandre M.S. Machado, BSc, MSc, PhD

2019-2024, PhD at the Graduate Programme in Ecology

Institution: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, UFSC, Brazil

Supervisor: Prof. Fabio Daura-Jorge
Co-supervisor: Dr. Mauricio Cantor

Thesis: The role of environment and individual differences on the dolphin-fisher mutualism

Ale successfully defended his PhD thesis in January 2024!

What is he up to? 

I am a biologist with a master’s and PhD in Ecology at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. My research is on the interface between behavioral ecology and population ecology, combining multiple platforms of data collection, computational tools, and quantitative methods to investigate the multifaceted dimensions of ecological interactions. In my PhD, I investigated the individual variation in dolphins that forage with artisanal fishers and whether individuals have asymmetrical contributions to the benefits accrued in this rare case of human-wildlife cooperation. Ultimately, I helped to unravel the mechanisms underlying individual variation among dolphins foraging with fishers and quantify the population-level implications of such variation.

Dr. Shanan Atkins, BSc, MSc, PhD

2018-2023, PhD candidate at the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences

Institution: University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Supervisor: Prof.Dr. Neville Pillay

Co-supervisor: Dr. Mauricio Cantor

Thesis: Identifying leverage points to solve the human-wildlife conflict regarding shark nets

Shanan successfully defended her PhD thesis in June 2023!

What is she up to? 

I am wild about biodiversity in all its amazing manifestations and am driven to use science to inform effective conservation action to prevent the loss of biodiversity. I started out investigating the interactions between the Endangered Indian Ocean humpback dolphins and shark nets set to protect swimmers and surfers along the KwaZulu-Natal coast in South Africa. I’ve ended up doing a PhD studying the bigger picture, trying to see both the social and the ecological elements. My aim is to identify obstacles and opportunities to change this human-wildlife conflict that involves sharks, bathers and other marine megafauna that is caught unintentionally.

joao_valle_pereira-sq

João Victor Silva do Valle Pereira, MSc

2023, post-MSc internship at Graduate Programme in Ecology

Institution: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil & Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Germany

Supervisor: Prof. Fabio Daura-Jorge
Co-supervisor: Dr. Mauricio Cantor

Project: Social foraging and hunting performance in human cooperative systems

João successfully completed his MSc degree in December 2022 and completed a post-mic research internship in December 2023!

 

What is he up to? 

I am a biologist and have a Master’s degree in Ecology (2021) from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil. My main areas of expertise and research are behavioral ecology, social structure, and cetaceans and artisanal fishers behavior. I am interested in the fishing dynamics in Laguna, where artisanal fishers fish with the assistance of wild bottlenose dolphins. I currently work as an outreach fellow of the Long-Term Ecological Research Program (PELD) of the Laguna and Adjacent Estuarine System (SELA) in Brazil, and as a guest researcher in the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour of the University of Konstanz (Germany). Besides that, the pillars of my curiosity are social behavior, evolution, and systemic theory, in addition to the people who continue to provide me with the fuel that keeps my quest for knowledge burning. Nature is splendid. “I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees” (Henry Thoreau).

KellanParker

Kellan Parker, BSc

2023, graduate certificate student in Wildlife Management

Institution: Oregon State University

Supervisor: Dr. Mauricio Cantor

Project: Social Dynamics and Agonistic Behavior in California Sea Lions in Nonbreeding Colonies

Kellan successfully graduated in June 2023!

What is she up to? 

I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Fisheries & Wildlife Sciences with a specialization in conservation biology, as well as a graduate certificate in Wildlife Management from Oregon State University. During my academic tenure, I worked as a research fellow in the Undergraduate Research in the Sciences and Arts (URSA) program under the guidance of Dr. Sanchez. My research focused barn owl behavior and nest box adoption success. Throughout my academic journey, I nurtured a profound interest in conservation behavior, with primary focuses on behavioral ecology, conservation biology, and wildlife management. Presently, I am a research analyst for Dr. Eleanor Gaines at the Institute for Natural Resources (INR), where I conduct in-depth species analyses on native reptiles and amphibians in Oregon. Additionally, I work as a writing technician for Dr. Todd Wilson affiliated with the United States Forestry Service (USFS), researching Humboldt’s flying squirrels as crucial indicators of long-term forest health. Beyond my professional commitments, I spend most of my time outside taking wildlife photographs or create insightful science-related content for social media. You can find more information about my science communication activities on my website, https://kellaneparker.squarespace.com

Kiera McGarvey Sears, MSc

2022, MSc student at University College Cork, Ireland

Institution: Oregon State University, USA

Co-supervisors: Dr. Mauricio Cantor, Prof. Emer Rogan, Prof. Fabio Daura-Jorge

Thesis: Parallel Lives: Do bottlenose dolphins cooperate amongst themselves when foraging with artisanal net-casting fishers?

Kiera successfully completed (and received first-class honors for) her MSc in August 2022!

What is she up to? 

Kiera studied the fine-scale foraging co​ordination among bottlenose dolphins that interact with artisanal net-casting fishers in Laguna, southern Brazil, to investigate whether this foraging tactic represents a case of social predation for the dolphins. Kiera quantified the degree to which groups of dolphins coordinate their actions during their interactions with the artisanal fishers, by measuring the cohesion, heading, and breathing synchrony of dolphin groups of different sizes in aerial drone footage of the interaction. Kiera was a visiting MSc student from the University College Cork, carrying out her thesis at the Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University.

People & Projects

Collaborators