Challenger Society Marine Biogeochemistry Meeting 2017

AMBIO attendees, September 2017, Oban, SAMS

The Scottish Associate for Marine Science (SAMS) were pleased to host the Advances in Marine Biogeochemistry (AMBIO) VIII conference in Oban, Scotland, UK. The special interest group for Challenger Society took place 6-8^th September 2017, and was the first time the meeting was held in Scotland. More than 45 delegates from over 20 institutes, from as far away as Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales in France and Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies in Hobart, gathered to present their research and honour the career of Professor Peter J Statham on his retirement from active research.

Prof Peter J Statham receives a gift in recognition of his illustrious career from Rachel Mills, Southampton (right) and Natalie Hicks, SAMS (left)

The conference targets networking for early career researchers, and key themes on the first day covered biomineralisation, global nutrient and carbon cycling, deep sea ecosystems and ‘lab on a chip’ sensors. The second day, dedicated to Prof Statham, focused on iron cycling, as one of his dedicated research topics, and organic carbon, marine policy and knowledge exchange, and mass spectrometry. Prof Statham delivered an inspirational keynote presentation identifying the changing nature of marine biogeochemistry and future opportunities for the next generation of marine biogeochemists.

Seona Wells (Aberdeen) was awarded the best student poster prize for her work on gelatinous zooplankton, with Kyle Mayers (Southampton) winning best student talk for his enthusiastic delivery of coccolithophore populations in shelf sea systems. The early career awards went to Amber Annett (Southampton) for her exciting presentation on trace metals in the Antarctic Peninsula, and Robyn Tuerena (Liverpool) for her poster on tidal mixing in euphotic zone nutrient cycling.

Seona Wells (Aberdeen) was awarded student Best Poster Prize

Kyle Mayers (Southampton) won student Best Talk Prize

Amber Annett (Southampton) won the early career researcher Best Talk Prize

Robyn Tuerena (Liverpool) was awarded early career researcher Best Poster Prize

The delegates were treated to a traditional Scottish experience after their conference dinner on the final night, as they were escorted from their dinner venue to a ceilidh (traditional Scottish dance) by a kilted bagpiper. The final event for AMBIO was a robotics and sensors workshop on the Friday morning, with over 20 attendees, which saw a stimulating discussion and exchange of ideas, led by Julie Robidart and Socrates Loucaides. AMBIO received sponsorship from Planet Ocean, SAGES, MASTS Marine Biogeochemistry Forum, and the Challenger Society.

Written by Dr Natalie Hicks. Natalie is a benthic biogeochemist working at SAMS.