Mariana Zamponi is a visiting scientist from Brazil. Her interest in science began in her childhood, it was an awe of nature. Her curiosity in how things in nature worked fueled her passion for science. She has always had an infinity for animals. Mariana once believed she wanted to study human medicine, but that love for animals pulled her in a different direction. In her undergraduate studies she focused on biology and fell more in love with it with each class she took. Not wanting thins to be the same each day also inspired her interest in science. MS. Zamponi fell in love with understanding the internal processes of organisms, and that is where she found her love in physiology. She acknowledges the constant and ever-present threats to the natural world and would love if her research and work in science could make a difference in conservationism.
One skill Mariana finds essential to be successful in a career in science is curiosity, followed closely with the ability to be resilient. Resilience because in science things do not always work out, the way you planned, and it helps you keep going. Another skill she finds important is creativity. Studying hard and asking lost questions, like why are essential in becoming a scientist according to Mariana. Being ambitious and wanting to discover new things and improve on what is already known can also be beneficial to someone studying or wanting to become a scientist.
For Ms. Zamponi’ s master project she decided to study manatees and the physiological responses to stress that occur in these animals. She was advised by Carolina Freire and Emygdio Monteiro-Filho at Federal University of Paraná and her studies are at Projeto Cetáceos da Costa Branca (PCCB-UERN) in Brazil where she studied stress responses. She mentioned that in Brazil many manatees strand themselves, some babies and sometimes with the umbilical cord are beaching themselves. Normally, the animals are not tested if they are depressed or stressed It is believed they got lost and disconnected from their mothers. She worked closely with many other scientists to understand their response to stress. For the first two years of a manatee’s life, they are typically fed milk from their mothers, so the first two-year step in rehabilitating these mammals is nursing them for that time. For the next 2-3 years the orphaned babies spend time first in rehabilitation tank and then an acclimation center. The acclimation center is an area completely surrounded by mangroves. There they can learn how to interact with other manatees in a safe environment. Mariana understands how important rehabilitation is to the success of the species, because animals like manatees even though they live a long time they tend to have few babies. She is studying stress physiology, including cortisol, lactate and their behaviors. Once animals are released into their natural environment, Marianna informs me that there is no current way to test if they are depressed or stressed, studying cortisol can help understand the condition of these animals. She would like to improve the rehabilitation process and eventually expand it to other marine animals. Even though people told her studying the physiology of these animals would be hard, she followed her heart and decided that she would continue her studies on marine mammal’s physiology. She now runs tests on blood, salvia, feces, hair urine of these animals to test the cortisol levels and other biological factors. She believes it is the best way to evaluate stress in the animals.
For her next research project, Mariana wants to continuing working with stress physiology but wants expand it to other animals, like whales and dolphins. During her time as a visiting scientist at UF she has learned she likes working with genetics. She believes this can be closely worked on in addition to stress physiology. She is looking for projects that may have more application and has the ability to immediately solve current problems the environmental world now faces.
One of the biggest challenge Mariana faces in her studies is funding. She believes more people need to invest in research and that most researchers are unvalued. With her positive mindset, she knows not to give up and to be resilient. Marina Zamponi’ s beliefs and desire to improve the natural world puts her on track to making a difference in the world of conservationism.
