Mariana Rivera Higueras

Rivera-Higueras’ research interests focus on marine ecology. Since 2015, she has investigated the impact of invasive marine fish on coral reef fish communities in Mexico's reef systems. These invasive species include the lionfish and the regal demoiselle, both originally from the Indo-Pacific.

For her master’s degree, she assessed the impact of lionfish on the trophic web of the Veracruz reef system in Mexico, which included endemic reef fishes. The in-depth knowledge she gained during her master’s research sparked her commitment to studying cryptobenthic reef fish communities. She then pursued her Ph.D. at the Marine Science Institute at The University of Texas at Austin in the Fish and Functions Lab led by Dr. Brandl. Rivera-Higueras is the first to describe the cryptobenthic fish community in the southwest reef systems of the Gulf and the first to compare cryptobenthic fish communities along a gradient in the Caribbean to better understand the factors driving biodiversity in a changing world.

Quantifying drivers of community assembly in Neotropical cryptobenthic reef fishes