POPULATION SIZE AND GENETIC DIVERSITY
Understanding population genetic diversity is essential to begin to prioritize populations for conservation action. In order to understand this, our team is collecting Mobula tissue samples for genetic analyses. From tiny tail clips, we can unlock a world of information about population sizes, genetic diversity, and, most importantly, which populations need conservation intervention first. This project is currently underway, and will identify population genetic structure for five species of Mobula ray in the eastern tropical Pacific.