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 to travel for affordability, health, personal or work reasons can attend. Video calls provide opportunities to communicate
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 understood beyond scientists.Article 1 of the Convention on the High Seas established
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 scientific understanding or resulted in significant benefits to society.” In reflecting on how this came about, it
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 these down below, While up above the Afterguard attack them on the floe:
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 travel) and online attendance for overseas delegates). However, as the situation developed we opted for
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 people. Scientists Should Stop Naming Species after Awful People A blind, wormlike
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 species experts (taxonomists) and users. Users include the taxonomists
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 suite of measures of biodiversity to map the 30% of the ocean with most
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 increased use of the word fishers in scientific literature is
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 Herald) He had an amazing career spanning mathematics, chemistry, physics, chaos theory, species abundance, and estimating how much
