Oceans Past Initiative

Newsletter - Oceans Past Initiative

Read it here 👉 oceanspast.org/newsletter/

Our latest newsletter is here 🐟

This month we're celebrating two decades of OPI, with special features & reflections from Prof. Cristina Brito and Prof. Daniel Pauly, plus lots more!

Keep up to date with current research in the field by joining our mailing list 👉 info@oceanspast.org.

@icesmarine.bsky.social

Oceans Past XI: Abstract and Funding Award Submission The Oceans Past Initiative connects scholars and practitioners interested in documenting and understanding changes in marine systems and human-ocean interactions in past decades, centuries and millenn...

Exciting news!

We’re thrilled to announce the Call for Abstracts and ECR Funding Award submissions are now open for the OPI XI Conference.

Join us & our hosts at the University of Victoria, Vancouver Island, Canada 🇨🇦, 15–19 June 2026!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

#marinehistoricalecology

Cooperation between ecologists and historians has allowed a robust reconstruction of the historical introduction of the Italian crayfish, Austropotamobius fulcisianus, to Spain in the late-16th century
@ebdonana.bsky.social @um.es
New OA paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Fresh off the press! Our perspective in @natrevbiodiv.nature.com discusses the wealth of information on biodiversity contained in historical sources, and its integration for long-term ecological knowledge and biodiversity conservation. A thread on the paper and what led to it:
rdcu.be/eEcIt

We'll be visiting ports in Mid-South Wales e.g., Fishguard and Aberystwyth next week (2nd-4th September). If you're from the area and know anything about the Irish Sea herring fishery (past or present), or know someone who does, please get in touch here or at fishistory@bangor.ac.uk🐟

Study tracks UK’s journey from seafood self-sufficiency to dependence on imports More than a century of data reveals how the UK has gone from supplying domestic seafood needs from productive home waters to importing seafood from almost 90 countries. University of Exeter researcher...

More than a century of data reveals how the UK has gone from supplying domestic seafood needs from productive home waters to importing seafood from almost 90 countries

Read more here 👇 @exeter.ac.uk @exetermarine.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social @profcallum.bsky.social @ruththurstan.bsky.social

Contac. njimenezcano@ucsd.edu

We have a couple of spots for our SAAs symposium on Marine resources exploitation in the preindustrial Americas.

We welcome papers that builds long-term baselines of human–marine interactions, blending methodological approaches, zooarchaeology, GMM, geochemistry, ZooMS, and aDNA!

Congratulations, Rachel!

@royalsociety.org @projectfishistory.bsky.social

Our latest newsletter is here! This month features new projects, special research issues, OPI conference information and more 🐟

If you'd like to keep up to date with current research in the field, join our mailing list by emailing info@oceanspast.org.

#marinehistoricalecology #oceanspast

Thanks to @icesmarine.bsky.social, we can partially subsidise the travel of a select number of participating ECRs. Awardees will be chosen on a competitive basis and demonstrated need. Applications for support will open alongside abstract submissions in September (2/2)

We are pleased to invite you to the Oceans Past XI Conference!

Taking place between 15-19 June 2026 at the University of Victoria, Vancouver Island, Canada (www.uvic.ca)

Abstract submissions open early Autumn 2025; stay tuned for updates!

More info: oceanspast.org/conferences/...

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Newspaper archives for marine biology research

Amongst crossword puzzles & sports news are fragments of evidence we can piece together to understand change b4 scientific surveys started

Species, date, location, size-all data points for analysis

In this case, on marine megafauna we have lost

A huge thank you to Governing Board member @nayelijc.bsky.social & co for their hard work on creating this!

Oceans Past Initiative Oceans Past Initiative (OPI) is a scientific organization focus in marine research and care the marine environment

Have you visited our new website yet?!

Follow the link below to meet our Governing Board, read the latest research, news & projects in #MarineHistoricalEcology, browse our resources & more!

🔗 oceanspast.org

A new paper by @rachelwinter.bsky.social used stable isotope data derived from fish bones from Middle to Late Holocene Levantine archaeological sites to explore trophodynamics and foraging ecologies prior to Lessepsian invasions and the overfishing seen in more recent times. doi.org/10.12681/mms...

HERRING KNOWLEDGE WANTED Project aims We aim to identify herring spawning grounds in the Irish Sea by incorporating historical sources (e.g., old newspapers and fisheries reports), local knowledge and modern data (e.g., seabed sediment maps). Information needed • Where were herring caught locally? • When in the year did herring arrive? • Where did herring spawn? • How were herring used locally? We need YOUR help! We are seeking anyone with local knowledge on herring, past & present. • Fishing industry- active & retired • Sea anglers • Fish trade/seafood industry • Historians- local & maritime • Government agencies & NGOs Area of interest: Irish Sea Can you offer any information? Or know someone that might? Contact email address: fishistory@bangor.ac.uk bluesky: projectfishistory

CHWILIO AM WYBODAETH AM BENWAIG Amcanion y project Ein nod yw nodi mannau silio penwaig ym Môr Iwerddon drwy ymgorffori ffynonellau hanesyddol (e.e. hen bapurau newydd ac adroddiadau pysgodfeydd), gwybodaeth leol a data modern (e.e. mapiau’n nodi gwaddod gwely'r môr). Y wybodaeth sydd ei hangen • Ble yn lleol y daliwyd y penwaig? • Pryd yn ystod y flwyddyn y cyrhaeddodd y penwaig? • Ble wnaeth y penwaig silio? • Sut oedd y penwaig yn cael eu defnyddio'n lleol? Mae arnom angen eich help CHI! Rydym yn chwilio am unrhyw un sydd â gwybodaeth leol am benwaig, yn y gorffennol a’r presennol. • Y diwydiant pysgota - p’un a ydych yn rhan ohono ar hyn o bryd neu wedi ymddeol • Pysgotwyr môr • Y fasnach bysgod/diwydiant bwyd môr • Haneswyr - lleol a morwrol • Asiantaethau’r llywodraeth a chyrff anllywodraethol Maes diddordeb: Môr Iwerddon Allwch chi gynnig unrhyw wybodaeth? Neu'n adnabod rhywun a allai? Cyswllt fishistory@bangor.ac.uk projectfishistory

📢 Calling all members of the fishing and seafood industry, historians, government and local experts!

🐟 Know where herring were caught, when they arrived, where they spawned, or how they were used?

🗣️ We want to hear from you!
📩 Contact fishistory@bangor.ac.uk

Ancient Poems Reveal the History of the Endangered Yangtze Porpoise Mentions of the critically endangered Yangtze finless porpoise in ancient Chinese poetry have revealed missing information about the habitat of the world’s only freshwater porpoise

Fascinating demonstration of the application of alternative data sources - poetry - in marine historical ecology - to inform conservation & management @oceanspast.bsky.social @projectfishistory.bsky.social @leafyhistory.bsky.social

www.scientificamerican.com/article/scie...

New paper out now in @natcomms.nature.com!

Multiproxy analysis reveals the earliest evidence of whale bone working and broadens the range of taxa known to have been used in the Bay of Biscay during the Late Paleolithic 🐋

Paper 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The identification of flatfish remains in archaeozoological studies has often been limited to higher taxonomic levels or species groups. Here a new paper provides excellent drawings and descriptions of selected skeletons elements! Check the paper here: doi.org/10.26028/cyb... 🐟

Our latest newsletter has just dropped! This month features new research, interviews with researchers and lots more 🐟

If you'd like to keep up to date with current research in the field, join our mailing list by emailing info@oceanspast.org.

#marinehistoricalecology #oceanspast

New paper out this week 📣

Authors detail 120 years of the UK's reach for seafood, revealing a rapid growth of dependence on global fisheries. By the 21st century, imports tripled 20th-century levels, with seafood travelling over 30% farther. 🐟

🔗 Link to read: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

New study on archaeological New Zealand sea lion and New Zealand fur seals from Māori settlement, middle European expansion and modern time periods, reconstruct resource niche positions of these taxa, using stable isotope analysis 🦭

www.int-res.com/articles/mep...

New #opeanaccess paper 📣

Ancient Atlantic bluefin tuna DNA up to 5000 years old revealed that the frequency of haplotypes has remained similar through time and highlights the utility of aDNA for temporal insights.

Link to read: buff.ly/LxREtOQ

International day of women & girls in science

While studying local languages & providing medical assistance in Yemen in 1901/2, Marie Hein (1853-1943) collected numerous biological specimens

- including a shark & a stingray which turned out to be undescribed ("new") species

#Moonfish, caught by a dutch fisherman in 1560 and drawn by Adriaen #Coenen, fishmonger and author of three 'fish books'

Moonfish/ #Sunfish are rare in the North Sea. Three(!) are recorded 1560-83
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🖼️https://galerij.kb.nl/kb.html#/nl/visboek/page/154/zoom/2/lat/-59.355596110016315/lng/20.7421875