Position Opening: Research Assistants (2) [FILLED]

Tony Rees wins Ebbe Nielsen Prize

We are glad to announce that our colleague Tony Rees in CSIRO, Australia, has won GBIF’s Ebbe Nielsen Prize. Tony inspired us for improving the functionalities to match the names entered by users in FishBase and SeaLifeBase website (Taxamatch). He also provided us with its c-squares mapping system that fits perfectly our grid approach by half-degree cell and our computation with simple relational database rather than more elaborated GIS methods.

Thanks Tony and congratulations.

The FishBase, SeaLifeBase and AquaMaps teams.

Web update - June 2014

Our website http://www.sealifebase.ca/ is now updated.

Search for your favorite marine non-fish species now!

Enjoy and happy learning!

Emperor penguins traffic jam

Photo by Kelvin Cope

 

Emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri ) are endemic in the Antarctic and are known to breed in winter. In order to survive the cold winds, penguins huddle together without moving to create a tightly packed unit [2]. This allows them to conserve energy and maintain their body temperature [2].

Huddle movement is also observed where directional movements may originate from any huddle caused by a single penguin. This movement was even compared to a traffic jam [1]. The small forward movement by cars in traffic situations are the same with 2 cm movements of penguins within a huddle [1]. This movement causes their neighbour to move a step closer in the same direction, in the end merging small huddles with the bigger huddles [1, 2].

To know more about Emperor penguins, visit SeaLifeBase.

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[1] IOP Institute of Physics (2013) Traffic jams lend insight into emperor penguin huddle. http://www.iop.org/news/13/dec/page_62141.html [Accessed 19 December 2013].

[2] Zitterbart DP, Wienecke B, Butler JP, Fabry B (2011) Coordinated Movements Prevent Jamming in an Emperor Penguin Huddle. PLoS ONE 6(6): e20260.

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