Dr. Rolando Santos

I am a marine spatial ecologist, focusing my research on the restoration and resilience of marine habitats and faunal responses to multi-scale habitat characteristics. Research interests center on the application of landscape ecology concepts in marine/aquatic ecosystems to study the influence of spatial structure and habitat heterogeneity on the patterning of marine communities, and species interactions, distribution, and movement. I oversee a variety of projects that use a combination of modelling and quantitative methods to further understand how seascape dynamics influence species distributions

I was born and spent the first two decades of my life in Puerto Rico, I attended the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras for my dual bachelors in Environmental Science and Geography. Afterwards, I moved to Miami to start environmental contracting, and eventaully started my Masters at Nova Southeastern University. Upon completion of my Masters, I was contacted by Dr. Deigo Lirman from the University of Miami, where I successfully completed my PhD in biology. Afterwards, I was a postdoc in Dr. Jennifer Rehage's lab at Florida International University before transitioning to an assistant professor and starting my own lab. I have strong ties with University of Puerto Rico's Biology Department (go cocks!) as well as the Sociedad Ambiente Marino, a nonprofit working in coral restoration in the Northeast Marine Sanctuary.

My research interests takes me to many unique ecosystems, both marine and aquatic. I am interested in using and developing new remote sensing techniques to further improve our understanding and mapping of marine environments, so that further questions of organism movement may be understood. In particular, I have worked in seagrass communities, utilizing drone and satellite data to understand habitat suitability of seagrass and associated juvenile fish movement. I also have worked heavily with Dr. Lirman's Rescue a Reef inititave, which focuses on innovative Dr. Rolando Santos restoration techniques to outplant coral back to Florida's Reef Tract. I also am involved with the Luquillo Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico. I am co-PI on a long-term project studying shrimp movement response to seasonal rainfall dynamics in mountain step-pools. Placeholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder textPlaceholder text Placeholder text

Outside of the lab, I love to go surf, skateboard with my dog, Maple, and try new resturants with my wife, Adyan. I have a love for nature and especially the water, so you can always find me nearby.