Oceans Past Initiative
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Oceans Past Initiative
@oceanspast.bsky.social
The Oceans Past Initiative (OPI) is a global research network for marine historical research.

www.oceanspast.org
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.
October 24, 2025 at 2:36 PM
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
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...
docs.google.com
October 11, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Reposted by Oceans Past Initiative
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...
September 1, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Reposted by Oceans Past Initiative
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
September 5, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Reposted by Oceans Past Initiative
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🐟
August 29, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Oceans Past Initiative
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
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...
news.exeter.ac.uk
August 29, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Reposted by Oceans Past Initiative
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!
August 16, 2025 at 8:06 AM
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
July 29, 2025 at 8:59 AM
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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July 16, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Oceans Past Initiative
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
July 1, 2025 at 8:48 AM
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
Oceans Past Initiative
Oceans Past Initiative (OPI) is a scientific organization focus in marine research and care the marine environment
oceanspast.org
July 3, 2025 at 12:40 PM
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...
June 30, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Reposted by Oceans Past Initiative
📢 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
May 29, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Oceans Past Initiative
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...
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
www.scientificamerican.com
May 30, 2025 at 1:35 PM
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...
May 30, 2025 at 12:31 AM
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... 🐟
May 1, 2025 at 1:06 AM
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
April 30, 2025 at 9:19 AM
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...
April 23, 2025 at 11:29 AM
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...
March 12, 2025 at 11:09 AM
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
March 5, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Reposted by Oceans Past Initiative
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
February 11, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Reposted by Oceans Past Initiative
#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
January 29, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Reposted by Oceans Past Initiative
In a world of powerful science & big data, how can historical documents usefully inform sustainable management of our oceans?

Looking forward to giving this talk tonight
@sosbangor.bsky.social @bangoruniversity.bsky.social @ystadaucymru.bsky.social
January 30, 2025 at 10:05 AM