Fri, May 12, 2017 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM MICHAEL SMITH LABORATORIES. Location: MSL Theatre
Speaker: Dr. Mei Lin NEO
Research Fellow, National University of Singapore
Giant clams, large and charismatic, are almost eaten to extinction, as men exploited them for their meat and shells as a source of food and material respectively. Overharvesting between the 1960s and 1980s had accelerated the pervasive loss of giant clams across the Indo-Pacific, and in some areas driven to local extinctions. To curb declines, numerous mitigation strategies such as listing all species in CITES Appendix II, introduction of national fishing bans, formation of no-take reserves, and the mass cultures of clams for restocking depleted reefs have been successful. These efforts provided the immediate and effective solutions to local declines. At the same time, they tend to be labour intensive, geographically localised, and mostly of mono-specific cultures that do not adequately benefit/deal with rare species.
Dr. Neo will discuss her team’s wide-range of research, from experimental ecology to phylogenetics, which has helped to inform giant clam conservation strategies both in Singapore and elsewhere.
