A RESEARCH assistant of the University of Santo Tomas won the Best Oral Presentation award under the Graduate Category during the 3rd Philippine Symposium on Freshwater Biodiversity and Ecosystem held this month.

John Claude Renan Salluta was recognized for his paper titled “Macroinvertebrate assemblages and functional traits in ashfall-impacted littoral zones of Lake Taal after the Taal Volcano eruption in January 2020.”

The university said that Saluta’s research was part of the NRCP-funded Taal Post-eruption Ecological Research Program under Assistant Professor Dr. Jonathan Carlo Briones of the Department of Biological Sciences of the College of Science and the Research Center for the Natural and Applied Sciences.

Saluta and Briones collaborated with Professor Francis Magbanua of University of the Philippines Diliman for the research.

The Philippine Society for Freshwater Science organized the 3rd PSFBE together with this year’s host the Ateneo de Manila University.

UST also served as a co-organizer of the event together with the UP Diliman and Los Baños campuses, the Laguna Lake Development Authority, the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute and the Philippine National Museum.