offer a 3-day training workshop. Taxonomic experts covering most of the major deep-sea faunal groups trained 65 participants, including one-on-one sessions for participants bringing their own photos or video. The workshop facilitated the exchange of information and ideas between institutes, trained early-career researchers, and ultimately enabled a greater level of confidence when assigning taxonomic identifications to deep-sea fauna seen in images. The collaborative nature of this workshop was particularly successful: MBARI provided the expertise and location; CenSeam provided funding and logistical support, as well as the infrastruc- ture to advertise it to the international seamount community; and the many participating taxonomists freely shared their knowledge. To further distribute the knowledge, information from the workshop is being included in a chapter on the use of towed cameras, led by David Bowden, in the forthcoming book Biological Sampling in the Deep Sea from Blackwell Publishing. The interest in these particular workshops may indicate a larger need for specialized training opportunities in advanced techniques, both for young scientists and career professionals. 3.7 Seamount Voyages. In 2006 the first CenSeam-linked voyages sailed to seamounts off New Zealand, initiating the field research component of CenSeam. CenSeam researchers from many nations have conducted field work across several regions (Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, Southern Ocean), taxa (from corals to cetaceans), and spatial scales (from individual seamounts to basin-scale comparisons), employing a wide range of technologies, including satellite imagery and ROVs. Many of the voyages have been multi-disciplinary, epitomized by a 2008 ‘‘flagship’’ voyage to the Macquarie Ridge (Southern Ocean) that brought together an international team of biologists, physicists and geologists. The scale of CenSeam funding did not allow core funding for research expeditions; instead, CenSeam focused on influencing and expanding the scope of global seamount sampling. At its inception, CenSeam compiled the first global map of seamount sampling and highlighted that the Indian Ocean, South Atlantic, and the Western and Southern Central Pacific were the most under-sampled regions and hence priorities for new expeditions. CenSeam support contributed to securing funding for expeditions to two of these regions—the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic—as well as other regions. CenSeam mini-grants have also added value to seamount voyages by providing travel funding to fill open berths on expeditions, and equipment loans to expand the scope of sampling. While the 5 year timespan of CenSeam is long in relation to many science projects, it was not sufficient to allow the results from expeditions catalyzed by CenSeam to yield their results and guide further CenSeam research; the analysis and expedition compo- nents operated largely in parallel. A longer program duration would have allowed an iterative process of DAWG analyses feeding into new expedition ideas, and expedition results shaping new analysis projects. 3.8 Public Education and Outreach. CenSeam efforts to promote deep-sea science to the general public took several forms. As part of the Deep Sea Education and Outreach (DESEO) initiative, CenSeam collaborated on the expansion of a touring museum display, Deeper than Light, which has received more than one and a half million visitors. Press releases alerted the media to interesting or important findings from CenSeam researchers. A prime example was the discovery of a ‘‘city of brittlestars’’ atop a seamount on the Macquarie Ridge. This press release attracted considerable media attention with reports in 26 countries and 7 languages in newspapers, television, radio, and online media. At a local level, CenSeam researchers gave presentations to school and CenSeam, an International Program on Seamounts university groups, as well as interested public groups. The CenSeam secretariat made high quality images available for use by educators and the media (Fig. 1). Eight cruises during the tenure of CenSeam provided regular ‘‘ship to shore’’ voyage logs that were posted on the CenSeam website (http://censeam.niwa. co.nz/), and received tens of thousands of hits, and were featured in school curricula. The overall Census of Marine Life website and education and outreach effort provided additional exposure for CenSeam news. Overall, the CenSeam outreach effort was limited by the lack of experience many researchers have in working with the media and public, and the low professional rewards academic institutions give to outreach in comparison to research outputs. The design and maintenance of the website also proved to be a larger task than originally planned. The most successful components, such as the museum display and the City of Brittlestars press release, were done in collaboration with education or outreach professionals. 3.9 Books, Special Issues of Journals Review Papers. Cen- Seam actively worked to create compilations, syntheses and summaries of the current state of seamount science for various audiences, in addition to fostering individual original research publications. These included a review in Annual Reviews of Marine Science [1], a chapter on seamounts in the Census of Marine Life book [43], and special issues published by the journals Oceanography and Marine Ecology (references given in Table 2). Figure 1. Examples of seamount images produced by CenSeam for use by educators and the media. A) Diagram of a seamount community, showing the primary components and zonation; B) Photo from the ‘‘City of Brittlestars’’ expedition. Credit: CenSeam-NIWA. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032031.g001 PLoS ONE | www.plosone.org 6 February 2012 | Volume 7 | Issue 2 |