Olivia Boisen

Olivia is a current master’s student in Fisheries Science, studying the spatial and temporal trends of microplastic ingestion by myctophids off the West Coast. Myctophids, or lanternfishes, are an abundant forage fish and their diel vertical migrations bridge pelagic and mesopelagic foodwebs - likely incorporating surface-floating microplastics into deeper food systems. She is utilizing museum-archived myctophids to detect changes over time in combination with specimen caught at varying distances from the Columbia River mouth (i.e. microplastic source) to determine factors that influence ingestion rates. Ultimately, studying the occurrence of microplastic ingestion in wild organisms helps us establish thresholds and promote mitigation strategies for marine debris.