Sheila Rodríguez-Machado

• Master of Science
• PhD Student at Louisiana State University

We examined global records of accessible natural history voucher collections (with publicly available data and reliable locality data) for terrestrial and freshwater vascular plants, fungi, freshwater fishes, birds, mammals, and herpetofauna (amphibians and reptiles) and highlight areas of the world that would be considered undersampled and sometim...

The Arctic Ocean supports a unique and dynamic microbial community, yet its composition, structure, and response to environmental shifts remain incompletely understood. In this study, 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding (targeting the V3-V4 and V4-V5 hypervariable regions) was used to assess surface water microbial diversity across 20 stations in the Baren...

We examined global records of accessible natural history voucher collections (with publicly available data) for terrestrial and freshwater vascular plants, fungi, freshwater fishes, birds, mammals, and herpetofauna (amphibians and reptiles) and highlight areas of the world that would be considered undersampled and sometimes called "unexplored" (i.e...

Poeciliids (Cyprinodontiformes: Poeciliidae), commonly known as livebearers, are popular fishes in the aquarium trade (e.g., guppies, mollies, swordtails) that are widely distributed in the Americas, with 274 valid species in 27 genera. This group has undergone various taxonomic changes recently, spurred by investigations using traditional genetic...

The genus Limia is endemic to the Greater Antilles with a single species in Cuba, Limia vittata, widespread in lowland ecosystems. The limited data available regarding its population structure suggest that its levels of intraspecific divergence are lower compared to other Cuban poeciliids. Furthermore, little is known about the dispersal pathways a...

Una de las herramientas para medir la efectividad de la gestión y el manejo de las áreas protegidas es la evaluación del índice de integridad ecológica (IIE), desarrollado por The Nature Conservancy (TNC) desde 1992. Este enfoque proporciona una base rigurosa no sólo para medir el éxito, sino también para establecer objetos de conservación (OC), ev...

El proyecto Evaluación de los impactos potenciales del cambio climático sobre la biodiversidad y desarrollo de estrategias de adaptación en dos regiones de ecosistemas frágiles de Cuba tuvo como objetivo general determinar la vulnerabilidad de la biodiversidad marina ante el cambio climático en dos zonas ecológicamente sensibles al sur de Cuba, las...

Fisheries of juvenile and larval fishes (i.e., fish-fry fisheries) often exploit the migratory behavior of diadromous species on their return to rivers. Although these fisheries are common worldwide, fish-fry fisheries are subject to insufficient management and the identity of the target species is frequently unknown. The artisanal fish-fry fishery...

Diadromous fishes can exhibit interesting evolutionary and population‐level patterns given their use of freshwater and marine environments as part of their life histories. The River goby genus Awaous are prominent members of riverine ichthyofaunas and occur throughout Atlantic and Pacific slopes of the Americas from the southern United States to Ec...

Extant gars are a unique lineage of ancient ray-finned fishes that are represented by just seven species globally. Among them, the Cuban Gar Atractosteus tristoechus is the most narrowly distributed, occurring only on remnants of pristine wetlands in the western mainland of Cuba and the Isle of Youth. This ecologically important apex predator has e...

This study is aimed to determine the diversity and structure of the ichthyologic communities in the coral reefs of Holguín, Cuba. A total of 85 fish species were recorded, including in 32 families and 53 genera. Low species richness and equitability were estimated at different sampling sites throughout the reef system. Cadena de Vita and Canto Chiq...

The Cuban Boa (Chilabothrus angulifer) is a top terrestrial predator in Cuba. References to prey species consumed by this boa date to when the first Europeans arrived in the region more than 500 years ago. However, long-term studies on its trophic ecology do not exist. The scarce and scattered records on its feeding habits indicate that this boa pr...

Centro de Investigaciones Marinas Universidad de La Habana revista de investigaciones marinas ARTICULO ORIGINAL Partial troPhic segregation in co-occurring Gambusia sPecies (cyPrinodontiformes: Poeciliidae) in a natural wetland of cuba Segregación trófica parcial entre especies de Gambusia (Cyprinodontiformes: Poeciliidae) en un humedal natural de...

The tropical tent-web spider, Cyrtophora citricola (Forskål, 1775) (Araneidae), is an invasive alien species in the New World. It was first reported from the West Indies (on Hispaniola) in 2001 and from eastern Cuba in 2003. In 15 years it has colonized most of the Cuban archipelago, but the westernmost part has remained so far free of this species...

The freshwater crab genus Epilobocera (Decapoda: Brachyura: Pseudothelphusidae) is endemic to the Greater Antilles, and the Cuban archipelago is the center of adaptive radiation of this group, with five species and several subspecies described so far. Despite these crabs seem quite common in freshwater ecosystems of these islands, little is known a...

Girardinus is a Cuban genus of poeciliid fishes. It comprises 7 freshwater-restricted species most of them inhabiting specific ecosystems or regions within the island. Girardinus falcatus, the Gold-bellied Topminnow, is common in lowlands of western and central Cuba but thought not to be present in the East. Herein we provide the first wellsupporte...

La presente obra ofrece un compendio de métodos para el inventario y el monitoreo de diferentes grupos de la biota terrestre en Cuba. Realizada con la colaboración de 71 especialistas, fue escrita fundamentalmente para estudiantes, biólogos de campo, profesionales y técnicos de la conservación, que desarrollen trabajos relacionados con las ciencias...

El objetivo general planteado en el proyecto consistió en determinar la vulnerabilidad de la biodiversidad al cambio climático en áreas marino-costeras ecológicamente sensibles. Como objetivos específicos se propuso: 1) Evaluar los posibles impactos del cambio climático sobre la biodiversidad. 2) Diseñar e implementar un sistema de datos e imágenes...

Herein we report the first evidence of predation by the invasive catfish Clarias gariepinus on the native Cuban Treefrog, Osteopilus septentrionalis, in central Cuba. This constitutes as well the first official record of one vertebrate as prey of this alien fish in Cuba.