{"id":2206,"date":"2026-05-05T13:23:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/?p=2206"},"modified":"2026-06-02T13:33:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:33:46","slug":"josh-bennett-williams-presents-manta-mucus-isotope-research-at-sharks-international-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/?p=2206","title":{"rendered":"Josh Bennett-Williams presents manta mucus isotope research at Sharks International 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PhD Candidate Joshua Bennett-Williams presented his research from the Ocean Ecol (Wyatt) Lab at Sharks International 2026 in Sri Lanka on 5 May 2026.<\/p>\n<p>His talk, \u201cManta mucus: its sticky and tricky application as an isotopic tracer of trophic ecology\u201d, explored the potential of non-invasive mucus sampling as a low-impact method for studying manta ray diets. Josh presented results from controlled feeding studies showing that manta mucus can provide useful stable isotope information, including estimates of diet\u2013tissue discrimination and isotope turnover time.<\/p>\n<p>This work, conducted with collaborators from <strong>Ocean Park Hong Kong<\/strong> and <strong>Singapore Oceanarium, Resorts World Sentosa<\/strong>, was supported by the <strong>Research Grants Council of Hong Kong<\/strong> through a General Research Fund grant awarded to Alex S.J. Wyatt.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<style>\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 50%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-2206 gallery-columns-2 gallery-size-medium'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/?attachment_id=2208#main'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-13-at-15.02.32-2-200x300.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-2208\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-13-at-15.02.32-2-200x300.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-13-at-15.02.32-2-683x1024.jpeg 683w, https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-13-at-15.02.32-2-768x1152.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-13-at-15.02.32-2.jpeg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-2208'>\n\t\t\t\tJoshua Bennett-Williams presenting manta mucus isotope research at Sharks International 2026 in Sri Lanka.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/?attachment_id=2209#main'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-13-at-15.02.32-4-300x200.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-2209\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-13-at-15.02.32-4-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-13-at-15.02.32-4-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-13-at-15.02.32-4-768x512.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-13-at-15.02.32-4-690x462.jpeg 690w, https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-13-at-15.02.32-4-390x261.jpeg 390w, https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-05-13-at-15.02.32-4.jpeg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-2209'>\n\t\t\t\tThe presentation highlighted the potential of manta mucus as a low-impact isotopic tracer for ecological studies.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PhD Candidate Joshua Bennett-Williams presented his research from the Ocean Ecol (Wyatt) Lab at Sharks International 2026 in Sri Lanka on 5 May 2026. His talk, \u201cManta mucus: its sticky and tricky application as an isotopic tracer of trophic ecology\u201d, explored the potential of non-invasive <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/?p=2206\">| Click for More \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2207,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,15,3,5,6],"tags":[28,109,99,126,132,31,290,289,291,292,294,296,297,295,45,76,141,293],"class_list":["post-2206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conferences","category-news","category-presentations","category-research","category-students","tag-conference","tag-elasmobranch","tag-food-web","tag-foraging","tag-hkust","tag-isotope","tag-manta-mucus","tag-manta-ray","tag-mucus-sampling","tag-non-invasive-sampling","tag-ocean-park","tag-research-grants-council","tag-sharks-international-2026","tag-singapore-oceanarium","tag-stable-isotope-analyses","tag-trophic-discrimination","tag-trophic-ecology","tag-turnover-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2206"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2211,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206\/revisions\/2211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}