Eynav (Navi) Cohen

Academic Education:

2012-2015 MSc, Bar Ilan University and the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences (Eilat)

2010-2012  BSc, Bar Ilan University, Extended Biology program

Background:

Navi started her Ph.D. with Professor Dani Tchernov and Dr. Aviad Scheinin as part of the Marine Apex Predator Laboratory at the station. During her masters, she was the first to construct of a nucleic data set for O. quekettii (endolithic algae). Identifying the true genotypic diversity of the Ostreobium genus provided an important step toward understanding its symbiotic relationship with its host, the stony coral.

Current Research:

In her Ph.D. work, Navi aims to assess the population connectivity of three different Elasmobranch species; Carcharhinus obscurus (dusky shark), Carcharhinus plumbeus (sandbar shark), and Glaucostegus cemiculus (blackchin guitarfish). All three species are aggregating seasonally at the Israeli coastline. Genetically based research will allow to understand the nature of these aggregation events further.

Assessing population biology and connectivity of blackchin guitarfish in the Levantine Sea is an additional project Navi is taking part in as a research lead. Primarily funded By the Blue Marine Foundation, this project focuses on documenting nursery grounds for g. cemiculus alongside the Israeli coastline while examining whether there is a linkage to this species population at nearshore locations in Cyprus.

A near future transition of the Orot Rabin power plant at Hadera, Israel, from coal to natural gas will drastically reduce the temperature of warm water effluent. This human-induced rapid environmental change (HIREC) leads to another objective by which the effect of this environmental change on the seasonal shark aggregation near a power plant will be analyzed.