a leopard shark gliding on a shallow sand flat. picture edited with lightroom

a leopard shark gliding on a shallow sand flat, raw photo

My first encounter with the endangered leopard shark in Gold Coast, Australia! This lovely guy was chilling by a coral patch and let us come close and take some decent shots 🦑📷
Before and after edits shown - cool how much magic lightroom does eh? #marinelife #photography #photographersofbluesky

New publication from the research I conducted at CUHK with Prof Joe SY Lee

Read the text here: doi.org/10.1016/j.ec.... Watch the video story here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmI-... (ENG) or here www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPKV... (CAN).

Message me for access to the pdf!
#publication #mangrove #science

I'm presenting a talk at the International Congress for Conservation Biology #ICCB2025 Brisbane! Our group will touch on various topics on Indonesian biodiversity. If you're attending the conference, come and see us on Thursday 2:15PM in room M9! ☺️

We fear that mantas could be chased away from their habitat soon if things don't change. So, if you have the privilege of being in nature, do exercise empathy with wildlife and treat them with respect. Here's to hope that the mantas will stay for an indefinite future. (3/3) #marinelife #conservation

On every trip to Manta Point, you'll see divers and snorkelers overcrowding them, and some oblivious guests would even chase and obstruct their swimming pathway. There's a reason why mantas come here in the first place. It is where they feed, socialize, mate, and get cleaned of any parasites. (2/3)

a swimming reef manta ray being surrounded by many scuba divers up close

several reef manta rays swimming near the surface of a reef with several snorkelers swimming above them

a reef manta ray swimming up close swimming near the cleaning station

a female reef manta ray being followed by several male mantas near their cleaning station, in an apparent mating behaviour

Today is the #WorldOceansDay and I'm highlighting the manta rays of Nusa Penida, Bali 🫶

Mantas serve as an interesting case study of eco-tourism. Even though they are the backbone of the island's diving industry, the economy they support is exerting a lot of pressure toward their habitat. (1/3)

Fig. 3 Non-metric MDS ordination of coral community variation among surveyed natural and artificial substrate sites in Survey 1 (2018/2019) and Survey 2 (2023) (stress 0.16 and 0.13 respectively). Ellipses represent the 95% confidence interval.

Our latest paper just out! After almost a decade of monitoring, we find growing evidence of community distinction and change in 21st century coral recruits when compared to their mature reef counterparts. A rare work looking into succession on reefs and more!

Paper: rdcu.be/ebLaw
#MarineEcology 🌐

Hi Dr Borja! Could I be added to the list if it isn't full yet? We've never met but I'm one of your coauthors for the paper with Ash and Bayden :) Many thanks!

a juvenile filefish swimming near a colony of hard corals

So cute!! Here's mine from our coral restoration site in Nusa Penida, Indonesia, last year #coralreefs #macro #photography 🦑🌊📷

Underwater citizen science reveals the specter of ghost fishing in Thailand Marine biologists diving in the Gulf of Thailand were thrilled in 2023 to rediscover several colonies of a rare type of ocean sponge once thought to be extinct in the wild. But their excitement quickl...

New article written about our paper on the MARsCI program to study ecological impacts of discarded fishing gear in Thailand. As always, we're happy to have ATMEC acknowledged in our efforts to improve biodiversity conservation and research in Thailand!
#marineconservation 🌏🐠🐡🦀🦈
tinyurl.com/ym45sr5p

Assessment tool addresses implementation challenges of ecosystem-based management principles in marine spatial planning processes Communications Earth & Environment - Marine planners and authorities can translate ecosystem management principles into specific actions during the marine spatial planning process by using the...

📢Our new #MarinePlan paper has just been published!
We present an assessment tool designed to tackle the challenges of implementing #ecosystem-based management in marine #SpatialPlanning.
🌍🌐
Led by @ibongalparsoro.bsky.social
Check it out here: rdcu.be/d7N3J

a close up picture of a large crab facing the right side of the screen. only half of the top carapace is visible. the crab is bright red with its two eyes, small white markings, and pincers visible on screen.

Bright red crab (Etisus splendidus) in the spirit of #chinesenewyear🦀🧧 Unfortunately I don't have a picture of a snake to match the zodiac sign😅 Found this beautiful specimen during a night dive in Penida, just chilling in the #coralreef

May everyone have a blessed day today! #macro #photography 🦑📷

🙋‍♂️

that's very specific Rahul and I don't expect anything less from you 🤣

Citizen science is an incredibly important tool for science too! I haven't been to the Atlantic nor eastern side of the Pacific Ocean. Must be wonderful to see the humpback whales.

I love them too! Also freaky how a severed limb of a starfish can regrow to a whole animal 🤯 I also enjoy searching for symbiotic shrimps and crabs that live on the echinoderms. Like this tiny shrimp living on a basket starfish

you have a good taste 👌 cuttlefish are incredible creatures. my favorite is the flamboyant cuttlefish which I've had the pleasure of seeing in Lembeh, Indonesia

Tell me what your favorite marine animal is, and why? I would love to know more about them (2/2) #coralreefs #marinelife #macro #photography 🦑📷

A peacock mantis shrimp facing the camera on a black background. It is showing its vibrant green and red shell and highly detailed compound eyes. This is macro photography, or a style of photography that enhances the size and detail of small objects and make it seem larger than it actually is.

A peacock mantis shrimp facing the camera on a black background. It is showing its vibrant blue and orange shell and highly detailed compound eyes. This is macro photography, or a style of photography that enhances the size and detail of small objects and make it seem larger than it actually is.

I love stomatopods; they're some of the most beautiful creatures of the reef! These peacock mantis shrimps have incredible vision thanks to their compound eyes, comically punchy arms that can accelerate beyond bullet speed, and high curiosity to approach an annoying diver with a big-ass camera (1/2)

i totall missed the #crustmas opportunity while photoshopping that text bubble, damn 😂

The water was 28 degrees C but the shrimp looks like it is walking in a wintery pine forest... Quite fitting for a Christmas Day post! Look, I even photoshopped a christmas hat on it... cute isn't it? 🎅

#coralreefs #marinelife #macro #nightdive #bali

"Winter Forest" | While searching for spawning coral colonies I bumped into this little guy hiding within a basket starfish (yes, the white leafy bits are part of an animal too..) 🤯 It didn't seem entirely special at the moment but wow, does it stand out amongst hundreds of photos I took. 🦑

possibly, but the mantas in nusa penida like to stay in the southern part of the island and their cleaning station is about 20km away from where we were. we also need a boat to access the site so it isn't very practical for a night dive, esp when we needed to precisely time it for the spawning event

I wrote a short blog post about the first documented coral spawning in Nusa Penida, Bali! I had fun observing the corals and writing about them. I hope you do too. 🤗🦑🌏🧪
rinaldigotama.com/blog/coral-spawning

It was an incredibly exciting night to finally see coral spawning for the first time, and be covered with coral eggs from head to toe :) Hopefully this discovery could aid and improve prediction of future spawning events in the region.

P.S. coral eggs smell fishy and weird 😅

Different coral colonies would spawn sperm and egg synchronously to maximize chances of fertilization and satiate predators with too much food to eat. This event usually happens around one week after a full moon - one that occurs simultaneously with a sharp increase in sea surface temperature. 2/3

First documentation of spawning in Nusa Penida's coral reef in Bali, Indonesia! It was rumored to occur around Christmas time each year, but this rare phenomenon had eluded us... until now. 🦑🌏🧪 1/3

#addocean #conservation #coralreef

Rinaldi GOTAMA | Senior Marine Biologist & Data Analyst | BSc | Research profile I'm an Indonesian marine biologist & data analyst. I am particularly interested in studying fish and benthic biodiversity, particularly their relationship with local communities, water quality, and ot...

please add me! www.researchgate.net/profile/Rina... :)

Stop and take 30 seconds off your doom scrolling to spend some time with this green turtle! Nothing compares gliding in the expansive ocean with the coral reef below and triggerfish fluttering above you.