Rahul Mehrotra
@noxaspidea.bsky.social
Marine ecologist and taxonomist; Research director and co-creator of the Aow Thai Marine Ecology Center (ATMEC.org) for marine biodiversity and conservation research in Thailand. DnD and smoky Scotch enthusiast
Grateful to @luminocean.bsky.social and Ocean Gardener for inviting me to give a talk on our recent study documenting annual daytime coral spawning. We explored this and the history of coral spawning from Thailand and the wider region, and its role in conservation. www.youtube.com/watch?v=00jN...
Daytime spawning in the Gulf of Thailand - Webinar
YouTube video by Luminocean
youtube.com
A new study by @noxaspidea.bsky.social and colleagues reveals synchronised annual daytime spawning by Pavona varians and Pavona explanulata corals across over 450 km of coastline along the Eastern Gulf of Thailand and Cambodia.
Coral spawning patterns in the Gulf of Thailand reveal synchronised annual daytime spawning, with a review of spawning patterns in Pavona corals across the Indo-Pacific
Global documentation of coral spawning has been increasing, yet remains restricted to corals and reefs for which established patterns have largely been identified, being overwhelmingly associated…
plos.io
After years of hard work and casting a wide net of collaboration, we are happy to share the first consistent spawning of this kind from the northern hemisphere. This is a huge step for our regional conservation planning as we shift toward long term goals. Link in the comments! #MarineEcology 🌐🌏🪸🌊🦑
Last year, ATMEC produced one of the largest assessments of Thai coral reefs to date. A new article in Mongabay has explored the findings from our work in the context of larger issues, reinforcing the value of foundational research to conservation! Link in the comments! #MarineEcology 🌐🌏🪸🌊🦑
A crazy amount of heat has accumulated in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean over the past two months. Hold on to your hats when this reaches the surface with the next El Niño. Y-axis shows depth, X-axis shows degree longitude (one degree equals 111 km) and colors temp anomalies. @noaa.gov PMEL data
Our Q&A article on inbreeding for conservation is out in BMC Biology! We discuss some important key concepts related to inbreeding in the light of new genomic tools and what it means for conservation when we want to improve species survival. #consgen bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
Q&A: inbreeding and its implications for conservation - BMC Biology
Inbreeding depression plays a role in the decline, endangerment, and extinction of small populations, and thus inbreeding has received much attention in conservation biology. The term inbreeding is us...
bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com
Great stuff!
fishonareef@fishonareef.bsky.social · 8mo agoExciting new paper alert! Paper by UH Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) PhD candidate Paige Wernli looking at the spatio-temporal distribution of tiger sharks in Hawai‘i, including how it correlates to humpback whale occurrence. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A particular concern for modern coral conservation practices!
Environmental Conservation@envconsjournal.bsky.social · 8mo ago"Given the ongoing global extinction crisis, preserving genetic diversity is critical for long-term #ecosystem resilience." This recent Research Paper in #EnvironmentalConservation highlights the importance of integrating DNA barcoding from understudied geographic regions into #conservation plans.
Last paper of the year! A new nudibranch species as a result of exploring the feeding ecology of hydroid feeding nudis in Thailand! Since I started this work almost 10 years ago, there's finally been some trickling of global nudi ecology research which is great! Link in comments #MarineEcology 🌐🌏🌊🦑
An all-too-common interaction I've had: Scientist: Our research can help shape policy to protect this endangered animal. Me: Neat! How? What policy? What is it now, and what should it be instead? Scientist: Uhhhhh..... Our new paper can help! www.southernfriedscience.com/shark-scient... 🧪🦑🌍🦈
Shark scientists want their research to help save threatened species, but don’t know how. Our new paper can help.
Sharks are some of the most threatened animals on Earth, and accordingly many scientists who study sharks want their research to be useful for conservation. However, most scientific training does n…
southernfriedscience.com
Hot off the press, our work on reviewing one of the most taxonomically complex group of scleractinian corals, based on new records from Thailand. This investigation is the precursor to a couple of rather interesting ecological findings (coming soon 😉). rdcu.be/ePm3r #MarineBiodiversity 🦑🌏🪸🌊
I am pleased to announce the publication of the most extensive assessment of the coral reefs of Thailand conducted to date! This took years of work, but we are now placed for conservation action to embrace the nuances and complexity of reef ecosystems! Link in the comments! #MarineEcology 🌐🌏🪸🌊🦑
In a 2020 #ScienceReview, researchers investigated how systematic racist practices such as residential segregation have led to an unequal distribution of “nature” within cities. Learn more on #WorldHabitatDay: https://scim.ag/3KQnEir
The ecological and evolutionary consequences of systemic racism in urban environments
Cities create challenging environments for many nonhuman species, and the presence of nonhumans in cities influences the health and well-being of the humans with which they share the environment. Dist...
scim.ag
As we prepare for the follow-up study on the impact of discarded fishing gear on #marinelife I wanted to throw back to this great article by @mongabay.com on our work studying this issue (link in the comments). Slowly disentangling this problem across the region🦑 news.mongabay.com/2025/01/unde...
Underwater citizen science reveals the specter of ghost fishing in Thailand
Marine biologists diving in the Gulf of Thailand were thrilled in 2023 to rediscover several colonies of a rare type of ocean sponge once thought to be extinct in the wild. But their excitement quickl...
news.mongabay.com
Our next paper from this year is the first-of-its-kind for Thailand! A multidisciplinary look into the bridge between SCUBA tourism, biodiversity, economics, taxonomy and awareness. Marine biodiversity valuations can guide funding and policy! #MarineBiodiversity 🦑🌐🌏🪸🌊 www.mdpi.com/3042-4658/2/...
A new scorpion species is described from Thailand's Doi Phu Kha National Park. Find out more about it here: doi.org/10.3897/zook... #ecology #scorpions #taxonomy
In an unconscionable decision, the Smithsonian Institute has decided to no longer support the Biodiversity Heritage Library from 1 Jan 2026. Please someone step up and take it over.
Trevor A. Branch@trevorabranch.bsky.social · last yr.Foundations: please step up and take over the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). This is an absolutely essential scanned archive of all of the old journals and books from the 1500s to about 1920. Has been indispensable for my research. about.biodiversitylibrary.org/call-for-sup...
Our newest paper just out: Coral recruits and juveniles on artificial substrates differ in their competitive capacity in comparison to their mature reef counterparts! We focused on a single area, so would love to see if the same trends are found elsewhere! Link in the comments! #MarineEcology 🌐🌏🪸🌊
We have just finished reviewing our 2024 data for Tao Talay Aow Thai, the largest sea turtle citizen science program in Thailand! Our trend of observations continued to grow, largely driven by areas with the greatest SCUBA diving activity and resident turtle populations. tinyurl.com/y433r466 🌐🌏🐢🌊
TTAT Progress 2024
Tao Talay Aow Thai project highlights from 2024!
atmec.org
Next stop in our coral connectivity project at ATMEC is the western Gulf of Thailand! This time, the team were able confirm a synchronized coral spawning event with more than 50 corals from 7 genera along with their dispersal patterns. Exciting updates coming soon! 🌐🌏#MarineEcology
Check out the brand new portal for the Biodiversity Literature Repository! www.biolitrepo.org, hosted by Zenodo @cern.bsky.social @plazi-species.bsky.social @gbif.org @sib.swiss
For context, the Great Barrier Reef has more than a million hectares of coral reef habitat.
A new study by @alexpigot.bsky.social and colleagues reveals the critical role of biodiversity in the functioning of ecosystems. @uclcber.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Macroecological rules predict how biomass scales with species richness in nature
Despite advances in theory and experiments, how biodiversity influences the structure and functioning of natural ecosystems remains debated. By applying new theory to data on 84,695 plant, animal, and...
science.org
🚨 NEW paper 🚨 🐠Coral reef nightlife becomes more predatory with light pollution💡 My first publication from my @thefsbi.bsky.social PhD at @bristolbiosci.bsky.social is out TODAY in @globalchangebio.bsky.social! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 🧵(1/6)
Artificial Light Increases Nighttime Prevalence of Predatory Fishes, Altering Community Composition on Coral Reefs
Artificial light is a manmade pollutant that is spreading into marine environments, and coral reefs are particularly susceptible to biological impacts due to the inshore, shallow, and clear-water loc...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Fossil evidence confirms that the Indian (Rhinoceros unicornis) and Sundaic (Rhinoceros sondaicus)rhinoceroses evolved independently over a long period of time, and the differences between them reflect deep evolutionary adaptations, a new ZooKeys study found.
Vertebrates receive 82.9% of conservation funding, according to a study of @IUCN data, with large-bodied mammals receiving the largest shares. Algae and fungi received less than 0.2% of funding. The authors call for this bias to be addressed. In PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Our latest paper just out! After almost a decade of monitoring, we find growing evidence of community distinction and change in 21st century coral recruits when compared to their mature reef counterparts. A rare work looking into succession on reefs and more! Paper: rdcu.be/ebLaw #MarineEcology 🌐
We programmed a crawler to search open web marketplaces for every animal on the IUCN red list. Nearly 2/3 of our matches were shark jaws, comprising 9 of the top 10 openly traded threatened species. A glimpse of the global trophy trade of endangered sharks: 🌏 🦑 🧪 🧵 urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...
Huge analysis out as a preprint today! For every 9 years an animal spends in the wildlife trade, it shares an additional pathogen with humans. Clear long-term impacts based on 40 years of global trade data 🧪😷 biorxiv.org/content/earl...
