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Studying seabirds with a cactus as a research assistant

Ecologist Cecilia Soldatini tracks the movements of magnificent frigatebirds.
By
  1. Ugo Mellone

    1. Ugo Mellone is a photojournalist based in Spain.

Cecillia Soldatini and one of her students looking at a laptop which has been connected by a wire to a small remote sensor attached to a large cactus on an uninhabited island with a tropical sea in the background

Cecilia Soldatini is a seabird ecologist at the Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education, La Paz, Mexico. Credit: Ugo Mellone

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“This century-old cactus that stands on the uninhabited Isla Espíritu Santo, in the Gulf of California, Mexico, is like my very own field technician: the device that we’ve attached to it automatically collects data from tagged magnificent frigatebirds (Fregata magnificens) whenever they come within a 500-metre range. Every month, my team and I come by boat to retrieve the data, as I am doing in this picture with my student Joel Lopez (I’m on the right).

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Nature 640, 562 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-01070-7

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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