Sequeira Lab attends the 25th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals!
Lab lead Ana Sequeira and PhD Student Olga M Azevedo were in Perth, Western Australia, for the 25th Biennial Conference in the Biology of Marine Animals.
Sequeira Lab lead Ana Sequeira, and PhD student Olga M Azevedo were recently in Perth, Western Australia, to attend the 25th Biennial Conference in the Biology of Marine Animals, which took place between 9 – 15 November 2024. This was the first time that the Society for Marine Mammalogy has convened in Australia!
It was a hectic week at the conference for the team, which started with their attendance at the 'Tenth International Sirenian Symposium' focused on research and conservation of sirenians, which includes dugongs and manatees, commonly known as the 'cows of the sea'.
Ana presented “A Global Perspective on Marine Megafauna Movement and Conservation”, focused on the MegaMove project, as part of the Ecology, Evolution, and Movement session. Within the same session, Ana also contributed to the work presented by Dr Sylvia Parsons on the “Movement and dive behaviour of Australian sea lions in the Perth metropolitan area, Western Australia” which was a collaboration with Edith Cowan University and the Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions. We previously wrote about this particular project here.
Olga presented a poster on our lab work related to the Gathaagudu Animal Tracking (GAT) Project, specifically focused on monitoring dugongs in Shark Bay, Western Australia. The poster was very successful, with many people coming to chat about it. People were particularly curious about the dugong tagging, but also about the stable isotope chapter and other possibilities for Olga's PhD.
The conference welcomed over around 1400 attendees from 73 countries and had five sessions happening at the same time. It was an excellent opportunity for our team members to meet with collaborators, learn from others, and network with marine researchers at the forefront of their fields. Ana had a chance to catch up with several of her MegaMove collaborators!
Congratulations and well done to both Ana and Olga for your hard work preparing for the conference and presenting!