What an extraordinary week at hashtag#ISBW15_WSC, “the largest gathering of hashtag#seagrass experts on the planet,” in beautiful Naples! 🌿🌍 Great seagrass research, seagrass!, delicious food, an amazing venue, and lovely people (photos below):
491 attendees from 48 countries gathered for three days of interesting talks and posters at the World Seagrass Conference in a stunning Baroque church. I’m super proud of the brilliant contributions from past and current lab members at Wageningen University & Research:
Rebecca James: “Using deep learning and aerial imagery to identify ecosystem resilience indicators from temporal and spatial patterns of seagrass meadows”
Fee Smulders: “Temperature and herbivory drive seagrass recovery potential across the Western North Atlantic.”
Susi Rahmawati: Poster on the success story of seagrass restoration at Pulau Pari, Indonesia
In my talk, I proposed a revised ‘pristine’ for seagrass ecosystems and showed that seagrass ecosystem multifunctionality may not be highest under the rise of a flagship marine mega-herbivore.
Following the conference, we took a field trip to the seagrass meadows at hashtag#Ischia Island. We snorkeled around shallow volcanic CO2 vent systems, witnessing the unique bubbling Posidonia oceanica meadow and its impact on local pH levels.
Friday featured two outstanding workshops:
1. Seagrass horizon scanning – discussing and framing the future we want for seagrasses, hosted by Lina Mtwana Nordlund, Jonathan Lefcheck and team.
2. Global seagrass mapping – identifying local needs for seagrass extent maps, developing collaborations, and contributing verification data, hosted by Chris Roelfsema and team (Muhammad Hafizt, Pramaditya Wicaksono, Beltran, Emmett Duffy, Gwilym Rowlands, Spalding, Schill, McKenzie).
Leaving Naples recharged and deeply inspired by the seagrass community. Thank you, hashtag#ISBW15_WSC. I am Looking forward to the next gathering in two years! 🌿💙 quote: Benjamin Jones papers cited: https://lnkd.in/eVzKPTHC And https://lnkd.in/eUaygpuf