The Sequeira Lab is celebrating World Ocean Day!
This week the SequeiraLab is celebrating World Ocean Day (Monday, 8th of June)! We are taking some time to reflect on our contributions to safeguard the ocean and also to celebrate the achievements and scientific impact we have had in the last year!
A special recognition goes to our MegaMove paper, published in June last year and co-authored by hundreds of researchers around the world! This paper highlighted the importance of international collaboration in advancing marine protected areas and strengthening ocean conservation worldwide. This work as seen are our lab leader, Associate Professor Ana Sequeira being named Australia’s National Champion in the Frontiers Planet Prize, and just recently, also being congratulated by the President of the Republic of Portugal Antonio José Seguro for her research journey.
Another important paper we published in Conservation Biology, was "Vulnerability of marine megafauna to global at-sea anthropogenic threats", led by our now finished PhD student Michelle Van Compernolle and co-authored by over 300 researchers, providing the first comprehensive assessment of the vulnerability of marine megafauna to a broad spectrum of human-induced threats in marine environments.
We also completed our beloved Gathaagudu Animal Tracking (GAT) Project after four years of collaboration with the Malgana Traditional Owners of Shark Bay, Western Australia! The end of the project was marked with the official launch of the GAT Project Website as a way to keep the connection with the Malgana community now that all our project trips to Shark Bay have been completed, but our research outcomes continue to flow from the data collected.
Other relevant work was our recent review "Environmental considerations related to floating offshore wind farms: a case study from waters around New South Wales, Australia" in Marine and Freshwater Research, led by Dr. Rachel Przeslawski and co-authored by a diverse team of experts including our lab leader Assoc Prof Ana Sequeira. This work was directly relevant for our ongoing project Investigating potential impacts of offshore wind farm development on little penguins!
Every year, World Ocean Day unites the globe to remind people to protect our blue planet. The Action Theme for this year was ‘Strong Marine Protected Areas for our Blue Planet’, guiding global action to save and protect the ocean.
Happy World Ocean Day week! One Ocean, One Climate, One Future-Together. 🌊