Oceans of Biodiversity
Research Group
Thinking about an international online conference?
The covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the use of meetings via video, including conferences and webinars. We first thought to change the World Conference on Marine Biodiversity (WCMB) to 'hybrid', that is both in-person (for national delegates who are allowed to...
Climate change: good questions answered
What is the problem with climate change? It is causing more frequent and worse heatwaves, wildfires, floods, and storms. These impact human health, farming, fisheries, forestry, food security, infrastructure, drinking water supplies, and biodiversity. They cause...
Curious species names
Sometimes we may need some examples of curious things about the use of species names. Here are some resources: Species names that are puns, tautonyms, rhymes, seriously long, and other useful and amusing information at Curious Taxonomy Naming species as an insult to...
How can scientists agree to a list of all species?
No single list of all the world's species' names has been agreed by scientists. Some taxa have no list, and some, especially the more popular mammals and birds have several. In a recent paper, we proposed a plan to address this that involves collaboration between the...
Mapping top-30% of oceans paper wins international award
The Elsevier Atlas Advisory Board chooses an award-winning Atlas article from across all Elsevier journal portfolios based on their potential social impact. The paper, led by Qianshuo Zhao and from his PhD work, included PhD student Dinusha Jayalathilake, and used a...
AI is a promising new tool for monitoring marine biodiversity
Artificial Intelligence (AI, using machine learning and neural networks) has made amazing strides, notably in recognising human faces. It is also being used to identify patterns on photographs of individual patterns on whale fins and flukes, and whale shark markings....
Equatorial species loss started before fossil-fuel fed climate change
Numbers of species in the equator started declining since the last age and before industrialisation, but more species will be lost due to climate warming The graph shows the number of species at different latitudes during the ice-age (blue), pre-industrial centuries...
Fishers or fishermen
You may have noticed people using the word 'fishers' to mean 'fishermen'. The term 'fishers' is an archaic English word that fell out of use. This history is explained by Branch and Kleiber (2017) but unfortunately, they do not recommend which word to use. The...
Bob May: an amazing bio-diverse scientist
Bob May (1938-2020) provided mathematical support for the theory that species diversity is essential for maintaining the healthy ecosystems that provide humanity food, health, pleasure, and knowledge. He died on 28 April 2020. (Guardian Obituary) (Sydney Morning...
Mapping the top 30% of ocean’s biodiversity
The oceans top 30% for biodiversity The marine biodiversity research group at the University of Auckland has published a world map of where most biodiversity is in the ocean. This is the most representative map of biodiversity to date because it considers marine life...
为了生物多样性而最应该优先保护的30%全球海域
为了生物多样性而最应该优先保护的30%全球海域 The marine biodiversity research group at the University of Auckland has published a world map of where most biodiversity is in the ocean. This is the most representative map of biodiversity to date because it considers marine life from genes...
Free data for research projects
With recent limitations on access to laboratories and fieldwork due to covid19, there is renewed interest in doing research that can be done anywhere with an internet link and/or computer access. There is a rapidly increasing amount of scientific data freely available...
Tips on CV presentation
When it comes to applying for a position, we cannot do much to change our qualifications and other facts but we can adjust its content to communicate what is most relevant for the position and take care of its layout. Principles Who is the CV for? Tailor it for...
Tips for video calls
Based on my own inexperience and observations! Practical stuff Mute microphone when not speaking to minimize background noise and feedback. Use headphones and microphone to avoid feedback and get the best audio both ways. Use the 'screen share' option to show the...
Fish dive to escape the heat
Researchers from the UK, Japan, Australia, USA, Germany, Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand analyzed three million records of thousands of species from 200 ecological communities across the globe. They showed how fish, demersal and planktonic communities changed as...
Connectivity and marine conservation planning
Hundreds of papers talk about the importance of connectivity in marine conservation planning. Almost all of these papers treat MPA as islands in a sea of nothingness. Some express disappointment that it is not more explicitly considered in planning Marine Protected...
There is a biodiversity crisis; exaggerating it is unhelpful and counterproductive
Conservationists do not need to exaggerate the crisis facing the world’s biodiversity (Costello 2019). Almost 30,000, out of 100,000 species assessed, are threatened with extinction (IUCN Red List 2019). This is far too many and a crisis. Helpfully, we know what...
Why Marine Reserves will work for Ireland
How to enrich Ireland’s marine life and resources A version of this article was published in The Irish Times on 20th June 2019 Minister Creed’s exclusion of large fishing trawlers from Ireland’s coastal seas is great news for the conservation of marine life, coastal...
MPA resources on the web
Marine Reserves on Facebook International Bill Ballantine’s website on no-take marine reserves marine-reserves.org.nz MPA News http://depts.washington.edu/mpanews/ Global MPA database http://www.protectedplanet.net MPA Atlas http://www.mpatlas.org/ IUCN marine...
Bill Ballantine, father of Marine Reserves
When I began work at the University of Auckland I inherited Bill's post-graduate diploma and MSc course on Marine Reserves. We became close friends and spent a lot of time talking about reserves and other topics. Here are some links to articles about him and radio...
