Meet Yulia M. Santos López: 2026 Seed Fund Recipient!
- Aug 10
- 6 min read
We’re excited to announce the latest recipient of our Seed Fund, a student scholarship program dedicated to empowering Puerto Rican students in island science. This year, we selected a deserving undergraduate student exploring the "ridges to reefs" concept in her research. Join us as we learn more about Yulia M. Santos López and her important research made possible through the Seed Fund!
What is your name, where are you from, and how did you develop a connection to the ocean?
My name is Yulia M. Santos López, and I am from Aibonito, Puerto Rico. I grew up in Orocovis, surrounded by the mountains of the Cordillera Central and the incredible biodiversity that comes with them. From a very young age, I was fascinated by animals and nature, but I was also painfully aware of how easily the natural resources around us could be overlooked or undervalued. One experience that really shaped me was Hurricane María. I remember looking at mountains that had always been completely green and suddenly seeing them brown and stripped of vegetation. What impacted me even more were the nights. Before the hurricane, you could always hear coquí frogs calling, but afterward, everything seemed unusually quiet. As the vegetation slowly recovered, I remember hearing the nights gradually become louder again. At that age, I did not fully understand the ecological processes behind what I was observing, but I knew I wanted to understand why ecosystems change, how species respond to those changes, and what we can do to protect them. That curiosity eventually developed into my passion for ecology, with a particular interest in understanding how anthropogenic stressors affect species.
What is your research about, and what specific question are you trying to answer?
My research focuses on chitons, marine mollusks that live along rocky intertidal areas. They spend most of their lives attached to rocks and feed directly from those surfaces, which makes them especially interesting to work on because they are constantly exposed to the contaminants present in their environment. I want to understand whether chitons living on Puerto Rican beaches with greater human activity accumulate more microplastics and trace metals than those living in less disturbed areas, and whether that contamination is associated with changes in their body condition. I'm asking whether these animals can tell us something about the health of our coastlines. Chitons are often overlooked, but that is part of what makes this research exciting to me. An organism that most people may walk past without noticing could potentially help us identify and understand environmental problems occurring along our coasts.
Walk us through your methodology; how would you explain it to a friend or family member outside the sciences?
We will sample six beaches in Puerto Rico with rocky intertidal zones, some with greater human activity and others that are less disturbed. At each beach, we will collect chitons using standardized sampling methods so that our comparisons are as fair as possible. Once they are brought to the laboratory, we will measure and weigh them to evaluate their body condition. We will then examine their tissues for microplastics by using potassium hydroxide that digests the biological tissue and filter what remains so that we can look for suspected plastic particles under a microscope and characterize them by things like size, color, and type. For trace metals, tissue samples will be sent to a specialized laboratory to measure elements such as lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, copper, and zinc. All that information together will help us to know whether chitons from more anthropogenic beaches have greater contamination and whether animals carrying greater contaminant loads also show differences in body condition.
How long will this project take, from start to finish?
The project will run throughout August 2026 through May 2027. That time includes field sampling across the six beaches, processing samples in the laboratory, microplastic analysis, sending tissue samples for trace metal analysis, and then analyzing and interpreting all of the data. This project builds on research we have already been conducting on chitons and microplastics, so we are taking questions that emerged from our previous findings and expanding them into a more comprehensive study.
What's the goal of this research, and what would success look like?
For me, success isn't necessarily finding a significant difference or proving our predictions correct. Success is producing reliable information that tells us something we didn't know before about Puerto Rico's coastal ecosystems. One of our main goals is to determine whether chitons could be useful bioindicators of environmental contamination in Puerto Rico. There is still relatively little information about using these organisms for biomonitoring in Caribbean ecosystems. If we can establish baseline information about microplastics, trace metals, and chiton condition across beaches with different levels of human activity, future researchers will have something to build upon.
How does your work fit into our mission of promoting holistic island science, the idea that Puerto Rico's ecosystems are all connected, not separated by land, sea, or discipline?
Growing up in the mountains and now conducting research along our coastlines has taught me that we can't separate Puerto Rico into independent ecosystems. What happens on land eventually affects our rivers, our coasts, the organisms living there, and ultimately, us. Many of the contaminants we're studying don't originate in the ocean, they originate from human activities, urban development, waste, runoff, and other processes occurring on land. Those contaminants can then interact with organisms and potentially move through food webs. This project brings together marine ecology, pollution, organismal health, and human impacts. To me, holistic island science means recognizing those connections and understanding that protecting one part of Puerto Rico requires us to think about the entire system, teamwork is key.
What long-term impact do you hope this research has, beyond the life of the project itself?
I hope this project helps establish chitons as organisms that researchers can continue using to monitor environmental conditions in Puerto Rico. They're abundant, relatively sedentary, closely associated with rocky substrates, and constantly interacting with their immediate environment, which gives them a lot of potential as bioindicators. I also hope this research contributes to a larger conversation about contaminants that we can't always see. I'd also like the project to encourage more research focused specifically on Caribbean ecosystems. Puerto Rico has unique environmental conditions and conservation challenges, and we shouldn't always have to rely on information generated in completely different systems to understand what is happening here.
Looking ahead, what do you hope to achieve in your broader career in science?
My long-term goal is to pursue veterinary medicine while continuing to be involved in scientific research and conservation. I dream of merging veterinary medicine and ecology. I am especially interested in wildlife and in problems that occur at the intersection of animal health, conservation, and public health. Puerto Rico faces challenges ranging from endangered native species to invasive species and the overpopulation of introduced animals, and these issues don't have solutions that fit within a single discipline. Ultimately, I want my career to allow me to work not only with individual animals, but also with populations and ecosystems. I hope to go into a scientific career that benefits both Puerto Rico's wildlife and its communities.
What can everyday people do to get involved or support conservation efforts like yours in Puerto Rico?
One of the most important things people can do is realize that conservation isn't something that only scientists do. Many of our everyday decisions eventually affect the environment, even when that connection isn't immediately visible. People can reduce their use of single-use plastics, dispose of waste responsibly, participate in beach and community cleanups, support local conservation organizations, and be mindful of how they interact with wildlife and natural areas. They can also participate in citizen science and volunteer with organizations working directly in their communities. Another important contribution is simply learning about the species around us and teaching others to value them. Some of the organisms that play important ecological roles aren't the animals people traditionally consider beautiful or charismatic. Chitons are a perfect example. Most people probably don't notice them when they visit a rocky shore, yet they are part of what keeps those ecosystems functioning and may even help us understand the pollution affecting them. Conservation begins when people recognize that these organisms are worth understanding and protecting, and you don't have to be a scientist to contribute to that.
To me, holistic island science means recognizing those connections and understanding that protecting one part of Puerto Rico requires us to think about the entire system, teamwork is key.
Yulia's Seed Fund project is supported by Isla Mar through the donations received by selling our merchandise, as well as generous donors in our community. Follow along here and on our social media to watch for more updates on her project!
