Ocean News

A look into the effects of temperature and exploitation on fish activity  A recent technical leap in the watch industry has led to the popularity of “Fitbits” allowing us humans to constantly track our day-to-day activities through metrics…

Sometimes the best way to endure the routine of a biologist is to escape from it. I like to visit the port whenever I have a free day during the week. If I know that this is going…

If you happen to venture out on a shark cage diving boat in Gansbaai, instead of the once common glimpses of grey and white, you might find your eyes drawn to flashes of bronze. Given the recent, presumedly…

If you are unfamiliar with epigenetics and haven’t read the “What is epigenetics?” blog, please check it out here. Environments are complex, the weather is constantly changing, the temperature, salinity, and disturbances encountered by organisms can change daily…

Proof that one person really can make all the difference   As tempted as I was to kick this off with some famous quote by a legendary historical figure about the value and importance of education, I will…

One of the keys to success in science and conservation is to establish good and strong collaborations across the board. Science is, unfortunately, a rare and difficult activity, and adding together the experience, skills and resources of several…

In previous blog posts, we established that environmental DNA (eDNA) research is more than simply taking water samples and magically finding out if your target species was detected. Being sure that your team is using the latest methods…

Back in 2016, we set out to tag adult dusky kob (Argyrosomus japonicus) in the Breede Estuary with the aim of understanding their movements and distribution within the known range for this species, which is from False Bay…

Metabolism…usually the only time we are concerned with metabolism as humans is when thinking about how it affects our body weight as we get older. However, in the natural sciences metabolism is much, much more! Why study metabolism?…

Project Leader Paddy Burke talks about the laboratory side of stable isotope analysis using stop motion to illustrate how they analyse isotopes in the lab, along with Macquire University and Save Our Seas Foundation. For this example, they…

We awoke to a group of 2 humpback whales sleeping just meters from shore. It was the sound of their soft blows that nudged us one by one from our sleeping bags. At first glance, you would have…

Solutions for studying wild shark behaviour Studying the behaviour of wild animals has been a notoriously difficult challenge for researchers over the years. The best way to study animal behaviour is to directly observe and record their behaviours,…