Deep Sea Biology Symposium in Hong Kong

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by

Mari Heggernes Eilertsen

The CBE Arctic team, together with other colleagues from the University of Bergen, recently returned from a lovely week in Hong Kong where we attended the 17th Deep Sea Biology Symposium – the largest international conference focusing on deep sea environments. The CBE Arctic Team was represented by Mari and Brenda, traveling together with Irina from the Deep Sea Biology research group.

The main purpose of attending the conference was of course to present our science, listen to other presentations and meet old and new science friends.

  • Mari presented results from the AKMA and Vent & Seep Fauna projects on Arctic deep cold seeps.
  • Irina presented results from the EcoSafe project, and won second place in the presentation awards for early-career scientists!
  • Brenda presented a poster with results from her PhD thesis on gastropods from Arctic CBEs.

We also found time for a bit of sightseeing in Hong Kong. On the Wednesday there was a field trip organized by the local organizing committee to the Hoi Ha Wan Marine Park. There we got to go on a glass bottom boat tour to look at coral communities, as well as checking out the coral babies in the coral restoration program.

Bright blue coral babies in an aquarium.
Coral babies
A sunny bay surrounded by green leaves.
Lush forest sorrounding the marine park
The glass bottom boat seen from outside.
Glass bottom boat

There was quite a large team of researchers from Bergen attending the conference, from several institutions. The group from the University of Bergen included Mari, Brenda and Irina from the Department of Biological Sciences, Chloe Game from the Department of Informatics, Anne Helene S. Tandberg from the University Museum and Aistė Klimašauskaitė from the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities. Additionally, there was a group from the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen, working in the MAREANO project. This made the Bergen-team a total of 9 persons!

The team from the University of Bergen. From left: Brenda, Chloe, Irina, Mari, Anne Helene and Aistė.
Everyone from Bergen, including our friends from IMR: Jonatan and Nils (on the left), and Rebecca (in front).

Attending this conference was especially exciting for us, because at the annual general meeting of the Deep Sea Biology Society, which was held in Hong Kong during the conference, we got to present Bergen as the next host city for the symposium in 2028! 🥳

Anne Helene, Mari and Rebecca representing the Local Organizing Committee for the 18th Deep Sea Biology Symposium in Bergen in 2028. Here together with Michelle Taylor, the president of the Deep Sea Biology Society.

The 18th version of the symposium will be organized in collaboration between the University of Bergen, the Institute of Marine Research and NORCE. This idea to host the conference in Bergen came from the Bergen Bathysphere network, which was founded to increase collaboration and knowledge-sharing across local deep-sea institutes and businesses in the Bergen region. The symposium will be held during One Ocean Week in April 2028, which will provide good synergies for both events. You can read more about the plans for the next DSBS on the One Ocean Week website (in Norwegian).

A big thank you to the local organizing committee in Hong Kong who hosted a great conference, and to all of the awesome people we got to hang out with and discuss science this week!

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