Denise Colombano

Denise Colombano

Postdoc (2020-23)
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I am an estuarine ecologist focused on fisheries and food webs. My research background is in community ecology, behavioral ecology, and trophic ecology of nearshore habitats such as tidal marshes. I focus primarily on projects that support efforts to manage and conserve native and endangered species such as Sacramento Splittail (Pogonichthys macrolepidotus) and Longfin Smelt (Spirinchus thaleichthys) in the San Francisco Estuary, California. I also collaborate with estuarine ecologists across the globe to develop conceptual models on tidal marsh support of fishes and threats resulting from human activities.

 

At UC Berkeley, I worked with Albert Ruhi and Stephanie Carlson in ESPM, and James Hobbs at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as a California Sea Grant Delta Science Postdoctoral Fellow – to advance synthesis of existing datasets and models of the effects of climate change on San Francisco Estuary fish communities using an open science framework.

 

Main publications:

Colombano, D.D., Carlson, S.M., Hobbs, J.A. and Ruhi, A., 2022. Four decades of climatic fluctuations and fish recruitment stability across a marine‐freshwater gradient. Global change biology28(17), pp.5104-5120.

Pak, N., Colombano, D.D., Greiner, T., Hobbs, J.A., Carlson, S.M. and Ruhi, A., 2023. Disentangling abiotic and biotic controls of age‐0 Pacific herring population stability across the San Francisco Estuary. Ecosphere14(5), p.e4440.

Current position: Senior Environmental Scientist at the Delta Stewardship Council.