Webinar: Sea-floor species health and survival to suspended 'sediment clouds'
Channel: Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge
Date: 2020-08-27

In this webinar, Malcolm Clark and Vonda Cummings (both NIWA) discuss the results and challenges from their Phase I Innovation Fund project. This project investigated how resilient sea-floor species are to suspended sediment levels, and how quickly they can recover from them. 

Common sea-floor species, dog cockles and the common sponge, were trialled in this project.

This presentation delves into the project background and purpose, the development of the innovative laboratory techniques and how the research is informing future research.
 
Learn more about this project at
www.sustainableseaschallenge.co.nz/our-research/sediment-tolerance-and-mortality-thresholds-of-benthic-habitats

About the speakers
-------------------------------
Dr Malcolm Clark, Principal Scientist, NIWA
Malcolm worked extensively on stock assessment of deepwater fish in the 1980s and 1990s before broadening research to more general ecology of deep-sea ecosystems, especially seamounts, from the Pacific Islands to the Antarctic. His recent work focusses on evaluating environmental effects of human activities (such as commercial fishing and potential seabed mining), and development of ecological risk and impact assessments.

Dr Vonda Cummings, Principal Scientist, NIWA
Vonda is a marine ecologist interested in the functioning of coastal communities and the environmental factors that influence them. Her research is focused on the implications of ocean acidification, climate change and other human-derived changes (including sediment impacts!) to our oceans, and their implications for key components of NZ and Antarctic ecosystems, most recently through the CARIM Coastal Acidification project.