Oceans of Biodiversity
Research GroupStrengthening 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...
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...
Climate change threatens 20% of species in biodiversity richspots with extinction
Species in areas with exceptionally high biodiversity (richspots), especially of endemic species (unique to that place), are consistent losers under climate change because they cannot disperse to more suitable climates. In contrast, introduced invasive species tend...
Equatorial decline of thousands of marine species is gain for higher latitudes
A new paper from Chhaya Chaudhary's PhD shows that the latitudinal gradient of species richness has been changing in concert with climate change since at least the 1950s (Chaudhary et al. 2021). Thousands of species have left the equator for higher latitudes as the...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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