Eimear Egan is a postdoctoral scientist with the Freshwater Ecology team at the National Institute of Water and Atmosphere (NIWA). Eimear grew up on a small farm in the west of Ireland where a tributary of the Inagh River, one of Irelands elver (juvenile eel) recruitment monitoring sites, runs through her family farm. This sparked her interest in freshwater fish and she went on to complete her BSc in Environmental Science at University College Cork, Ireland. Eimear completed her PhD in 2017 on the marine life of īnanga whitebait at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch.

 

Eimear is currently investigating the effects of climate change on tuna (freshwater eel) populations in Aotearoa.  To achieve this, she is studying the ear bones (otoliths) of tuna. She has used historic and modern collections of shortfin eel otoliths from Te Waihora to create a time-series of growth rates that spans over 50 years. Eimear will share some of her research findings and will discuss the wealth of valuable information recorded in fish ear bones. The title of her presentation is; “How can fish ear bones tell us about the effects of climate change on Aotearoa’s freshwater fish populations?”

 

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