Oceans of Biodiversity

Research Group

How necessary is academic travel?

There is a growing realisation, especially with our experience with virtual meetings during the covid-19 pandemic, that virtual video meetings are a practical alternative to travelling to meetings. Virtual meetings can be more equitable. People who find it difficult...

read more

Strengthening nature conservation with Marine Reserves

A 2020 survey of Irish citizens found 92% “strongly agreed” that more action needs to be taken to improve the health of the ocean. Now is their chance to push for such change. This Friday 30th July 2021 is the deadline for citizens to support the protection of marine...

read more

High Seas or ABNJ, and BBNJ

I sometimes wonder why we invent acronyms. Take ABNJ (areas beyond national jurisdiction) and BBNJ (biodiversity in ABNJ) for example. These terms are increasingly used by marine scientists instead of "High Seas". Yet the term High Seas has longer use and is widely...

read more

Shorland Medal: an appreciation

I am greatly honoured to receive the Shorland Medal from the cross-disciplinary New Zealand Association of Scientists. "The Shorland Medal is awarded in recognition of major and continued contribution to basic or applied research that has added significantly to...

read more

A Code of Conduct for ethical scientific practice

A code of conduct for scientists developed by the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network*  We welcome its application and development in other communities of practice Excellent, effective science and good citizenship require that scientists hold themselves to a high...

read more
World map of the kelp biome updated

World map of the kelp biome updated

The first world map of the laminarian kelp biome has been published (Jayathilake and Costello (2020).  It estimates the kelp biome to occupy 1,469,900 km2 and be present on 22 % of the world’s coastline. It is thus the second most widely distributed marine biome,...

read more

A pack ice poem about polar ecology: THE PROTOPLASMIC CYCLE

THE PROTOPLASMIC CYCLE Big floes have little floes all around about 'em, And all the yellow diatoms couldn't do without 'em. Forty million shrimplets feed upon the latter, And they make the penguin and the seals and whales Much fatter. Along comes the Orca and kills...

read more
Thinking about an international online conference?

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...

read more
Climate change: good questions answered

Climate change: good questions answered

What is the problem with climate change? It is causing more frequent and worse heat-waves, wildfires, floods, and storms. These impact human health, farming, fisheries, forestry, food security, infrastructure, drinking water supplies, and biodiversity. They cause...

read more

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...

read more
How can scientists agree to a list of all species?

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...

read more

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...

read more

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....

read more

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...

read more

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...

read more
Mapping the top 30% of ocean’s biodiversity

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...

read more
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

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...

read more

Categories

Recent posts

Print Friendly, PDF & Email