June 2021
Open and inclusive science can pave the way for baselining biodiversity
By Andrew F. Torres (ESR at Natural History Museum London) Studying gastropods (currently the second most diverse group of animals, only after insects) from Indonesia (which is right smack in the middle of a marine
Decalcification trials on living forams at Naturalis
By Elsa B. Girard (ESR at Naturalis Biodiversity Center) A new pet at Naturalis To fill the hole left by the impossibility to go to the field in Indonesia in 2020, we decided to host
May 2021
Surveying what’s hidden: using ARMS to capture cryptic biodiversity
By Dino Ramos (ESR 11 at University of Granada), Andrew Torres (ESR 3 at Natural History Museum London) and Dedi Parenden (ESR 17 at Hasanuddin University) COVID-19 has made working in the field still out
April 2021
Looking at coral reefs’ environmental parameters from space
By JC Fischer & Elsa B. Girard (ESRs at University of Bristol and Naturalis Biodiversity Center) Environmental conditions can provide essential information for any ecological analysis of coral reefs. To improve our understanding on temporal
January 2021
Microcosms – how I became an aquarist
By Tamara Stuij (ESR at the University of Aveiro, Portugal) For my project I am setting up a multifactorial microcosm experiment to explore the dynamic nature of coral reef bacterial communities. In this blog post
November 2020
Lab work: an ideal reason to flee the home office
By Elsa B. Girard and Mike Hynes (ESRs at Naturalis Biodiversity Center) Since September, Elsa and Mike left home on a part-time basis to do lab work at Naturalis Biodiversity Center. Not only do they
Some interesting samples from the Leiden collections
By Leonardo Bertini (ESR at Natural History Museum London) I had a closer look at some of the samples that Prof. Willem Renema’s team from Naturalis sorted for me. Without doing any analyses or anything, there
October 2020
Remote collaborations with Naturalis Biodiversity Center
By Leonardo Bertini (ESR at Natural History Museum London) Since being in lockdown, the Natural History Museum London has continued to work with our partner institutions and collaborators. The pandemic hasn’t stopped us from working
My first day back at the NHM Collections
By Leonardo Bertini (ESR at Natural History Museum London) After many months of working from home, I was very excited to get to visit the Natural History Museum (NHM) collections to look at some specimens
Academic ‘Resilience’
By Leonardo Bertini (ESR at Natural History Museum London) In academia, we often do not associate the term ‘resilience’ with one’s individual ability to cope with challenging situations. Interestingly, if you ask an environmental scientist
Willem Renema appointed Professor of Marine Palaeobiodiversity
Willem Renema, Project Coordinator of 4D-REEF, has been appointed professor by special appointment of Marine Palaeobiodiversity at the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). His Chair is hosted within the Department of Ecosystem
August 2020
2nd Network Training Activity for the 4D-REEF Consortium
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we unfortunately had to postpone our planned fieldwork in Indonesia and therefore also the Network Training Activity that was scheduled to take place in Makassar. This NTA would have included
Foram DNA to predict coral reef health
Elsa B. Girard is based at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands, and her research is focused on the temporal biodiversity of large benthic foraminifera (LBF) assemblages. Watch this movie to learn more about her
July 2020
3D visualisations of turbid reef study sites
Ocean Maps, a privately held Austrian surveying company, is a beneficiary of the 4D-REEF programme hosting one of the Early Stage Researchers, Roberto Giudici. They are contributing to the 4D-REEF programme with their cutting-edge interactive
April 2020
1st Network Training Activity for the 4D-REEF Consortium
From April 20th to 24th, the 4D-REEF consortium met for the first time in Carboneras, Spain on Zoom. On the first day, everyone gave a 2 minute introduction to who we are through a single
May 2019
4D-REEF pre-kick off meeting in Leiden
The 4D-REEF Consortium was awarded their EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions grant on Christmas Eve 2018. What a great news to start 2019 with the prospect of building a scientific hub of excellence in the relatively