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Owen & Lu

@therealseamob

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Field Notes from Nature
🍃 Ecology | 🌊 Exploration
📧 [email protected]

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🌿🌊 Nature’s Coastal Guardians 🌍☀️

👋🏽 Welcome to the first part of our Coastal Wetlands Series! These vital ecosystems are more than just beautiful landscapes, they’re nature’s superheroes 💙 Coastal wetlands, including mangroves and saltmarshes, protect coastlines, nurture marine life, and help combat climate change 🌳

✨ Did you know? Coastal wetlands absorb wave energy, reducing the impact of natural disasters like tsunamis and cyclones. During the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, areas with intact mangroves experienced significantly less destruction 🌍

👉 For example, a 10-year-old mangrove forest, 500m wide, can reduce the hydrodynamic force of a 3 m tsunami by 70% 🌊

Follow us @therealseamob to learn more about how these ecosystems work, why they’re under threat, and what we can do to protect them. Let’s reconnect with nature and make waves for a sustainable future! 🌱

🤓 Want to get your geek on? 💻 Check out this study to dive in deeper 👇🏽
📄 Tsunami Damage Reduction Performance of a Mangrove Forest in Banda Aceh, Indonesia (Yanagisawa, H., S. Koshimura, T. Miyagi, and F. Imamura, 2010)

#NaturesCoastalGuardians #MangrovesMatter #SaltmarshSavers #EnvironmentalAwareness #CoastalProtection #MangroveConservation by @therealseamob

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2 years ago

🌿 Why Wetlands Matter 🌿
Part 2 of our Coastal Wetlands series 🎬 Move over, @marvel, wetlands are the real superheroes! They’re feeding us, protecting coasts, fighting climate change, and hosting some of the coolest biodiversity on the planet. No tights, no capes, just good ol’ nature doing its thing 🦸‍♀️🌊🌍

Here are six reasons why wetlands deserve your attention:
1️⃣ Feed Millions 🦀 (Ever eaten seafood? Thank a wetland)
2️⃣ Guard coasts 🌊 (They’re like nature’s airbags, but way cooler)
3️⃣ Store carbon 🌱 (Fighting climate change, one mudflat at a time)
4️⃣ Host biodiversity 🦩 (Flamingos? Crabs? Crocs? Wetlands got ‘em!)🐊
5️⃣ Filter water 💧 (Think Brita filter, but free and massive!)
6️⃣ Hold cultural significance 🌏✨ (Sacred and special in ways we can’t put into emojis)

💡 Which wetland superpower blows your mind the most? Tell us in the comments!

🔍 Slide 3: Did you know mangroves double as flood-busting ninjas? @oceanographic_mag does! Check out their article “Research Shows Mangrove Conservation Pays for Itself in Flood Protection” which breaks it down. Also check out Menéndez et al.’s (2020) paper, “The Global Flood Protection Benefits of Mangroves”.

🔍 Slide 4: Crabs might seem like beach bullies, but their burrowing activities play a big role in nutrient cycling! Learn more in Xiao et al., (2022) “Crab bioturbation drives coupled iron-phosphate-sulfide cycling in mangrove and salt marsh soils”.

🌟 AI Meets Wetlands
Did you notice? Some images in this post were created with AI! 🤖✨ Technology is teaming up with nature to protect wetlands, from visualizing data to simulating and modelling impacts. Turns out, computers love wetlands too!

Ready to be a hero for wetlands?
🌍 Donate to conservation groups, wetlands, and their critters will thank you.
💚 Volunteer to get your hands muddy for a good cause.
📢 Share this post, wetlands deserve the spotlight!

🔗 Visit @mangrovewatch to learn more and take action.

Let’s keep these wetland wonders thriving. Nature’s superheroes need your superpowers too! 💪🌿

#whywetlandsmatter #wetlandsconservation #savewetlands #aiforenvironment #magroves by @therealseamob

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2 years ago

🌿🚨 Coastal Wetlands Under Pressure🚨🌊

🌊 Part 3 of our Coastal Wetlands Series! 🌳

We’ve talked about how amazing wetlands are, but what happens when they’re under stress? Let’s get informed, because the more we know, the better we can protect these ecosystems!

👇 Swipe through to uncover more!

🌡️ Climate Chaos:
In 2015, large-scale mangrove dieback in Australia released enough CO₂ to power around 220,000 cars for a year! 🚗💨 That’s bonkers! Climate change isn’t just melting glaciers, it’s reshaping entire coastal ecosystems!

🏗️ Deforestation & Development:
Wetlands are cleared for agriculture, shrimp farms & urban sprawl. But sustainable planning can balance conservation & progress, because nobody wants a future without nature’s flood barriers! 🌊🏡

🍤 Aquaculture & Runoff:
Shrimp farms & monocultures can pollute coastal waters, making wetlands vulnerable to erosion & biodiversity loss. But guess what? Integrated wetland farming can boost yields AND protect nature! 💰💚

🚧 Altered Water Flow:
Infrastructure cuts off tidal flows, leaving wetlands stressed. But nature adapts 🐟 Mosquitofish dodge heat stress using mangrove shade! This is so cool our own @obslimdogg co-authored a paper about it with the amazing @marine_conserve & @laurabethyoung 🌱 Check it out below!

🗑️ Pollution:
Wetlands are nature’s water filters, but they can only take so much. Plastic waste, chemicals, & industrial runoff push them to the brink. Think of wetlands like a giant filter, let’s not clog it up! ♻️

🌊 Coastal Erosion
Removing native vegetation accelerates erosion. Rising seas & extreme weather speed up the damage, but restoring wetlands can turn the tide!

📷 Slide 5 Photo: @srikanthwildlife

💡 Check out Slide 10 to see How you can help!

🌏 Want to dive deeper? Google:
📄 Duke et al., 2017 – Mangrove dieback & climate impacts
📄 Canning et al., 2023 – Wetlands & sustainable farming
📄 Hendy et al., 2020 – Check out my paper on mangrove thermal buffering 🌡️🌱🐠

💬 Drop a 💙 in the comments if you’re with us in saving coastal wetlands! #saveourwetlands #mangrovesmatter #climateaction #coastalprotection #therealseamob by @therealseamob

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2 years ago

Three weeks on the Great Barrier Reef, wrapped up! 🪸⛵

A whole lot of diving, learning, laughs, brilliant people, and I even got to do a bit of sailing along the way!

It’s been an incredible few weeks with the @coralnurtureprogram and @future_reefs_lab teams, getting stuck into some exciting research across the Reef.

🪸Week 1 - Hastings Reef: Back underwater monitoring experiments for my PhD, exploring how different coral traits could help inform which species we choose to out plant. Lots of photogrammetry, collecting data and learning how we can better track restoration outcomes over time.

🔬Week 2 - Opal Reef:Four packed days helping set up new studies investigating coral traits and heat tolerance. From tagging and phenotyping to heat-stress testing, coral nurseries and 3D reef mapping, there was plenty happening both above and below the water!

🤿 Week 3 - CNP surveys: We jumped back in the water for the programs biannual monitoring, contributing to over eight years of research, collaboration and learning about what works (and what doesn’t!) in coral restoration.

With the warmer months approaching and some concerning El Niño predictions on the horizon, there’s plenty to think about as we continue monitoring how these corals respond.

A HUGE thank you to @pstrud, @reef.wanderer and @taliunderwater, and to the incredible teams at @passionsofparadise, @wavelengthreefcruises, @greatadventurescruises and @sailawayportdouglas, and @liquid_desire. So many brilliant people making this work possible, and such a privilege to be part of it! 🫶

Want to know more about the Coral Nurture Program? Check out @coralnurtureprogram!

#greatbarrierreefqld #CoralNurtureProgram #coralrestorationproject #marinebiologystudents #researchanddevelopment by @therealseamob

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5 days ago

POV: You had no idea that social media was in the job description 😂 🩵 🪸 #marinebiology #coral #science by @therealseamob

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12 days ago

Welcome aboard @liquid_desire! Here’s a little sneak peek into our home last week out at Opal Reef in the northern Great Barrier Reef 🪸 🫧

#greatbarrierreef #coralreefrestoration by @therealseamob

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14 days ago

Extremely lucky to have called Hastings Reef and @passionsofparadise my office last week. Here’s a sneak peek into what we got up to - always managing to capture every moment and still get the work done with the best team 💪🪸 @pstrud @therealseamob

#reefrestoration #greatbarrierreef by @therealseamob

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19 days ago

We are sailing home after four days onboard @liquid_desire with @wavelengthreefcruises setting up a new @coralnurtureprogram (@future_reefs_lab ) study tagging, fragging, phenotyping and genotyping four key species.

We ran 50 coral colonies through a rapid heat stress test to get an idea of their potential heat tolerance and attached over 400 coral fragments from these colonies to coral nurseries at two sites on Opal Reef, northern GBR.

We then collected images of the reef area (which we were collecting the corals from) and will construct 3D models (or reef maps 🗺️) from these with the help of the experts at @wildflow.ai .

Yes it’s cold enough for a double hood (23*C and I would have been wearing a dry suit if it wasn’t being repaired 🫠) but we anticipate the summer is going to be quite warm for these corals with the strong El Niño which has set in! It will be a team effort to monitor all the parent colonies and nursery fragments across the two sites to compare bleaching outcomes.

After 12.5hrs underwater in the past 4 days I am ready to dry out in the sun like Pippa in the last slide 🌞

A massive thank you to the awesome @utsscience and @wavelengthreefcruises crew who as always came together to pull off a ridiculous amount of work in a short space of time. Big shoutout to @taliunderwater troubleshooting the heat-stress device on her first time solo at the helm👩🏼‍💻💪 #girlpower

#GenerationRestoration #GreatBarrierReef #CoralResilience by @therealseamob

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19 days ago

Thankfully our camera angles were better than this angle of us.

#diving #research #greatbarrierreefaustralia by @therealseamob

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a month ago

What are the chances of that like… #mikeskinner #thestreets #whatarethechances by @therealseamob

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a month ago

Who’s your sailing pal? ⛵️🌅 #sailing #pal #nightsailing #bestpal #living taken in Australia by @therealseamob

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2 months ago

On the tools with Owen // Building Better Reefs 🧱🪸

From bricklaying to coral reef ecology - turns out the two worlds have more in common than you might think.

Here is a quick look at why restoring reefs means thinking about the whole system and what Owen will be diving into during his PhD.

📹 @therealseamob

🎵 Music: The Podcast Intro - Music_Unlimited via Pixabay by @therealseamob

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2 months ago