Lewy Otwoma
Report of GLOMAR PhD student Lewy Otwoma about his participation in the WIOMSA 2017 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from 30 October to 4 November 2017
The 10th Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA) scientific symposium was held between 30th October and 4th November 2017 at the Julius Nyerere Internation Convention Centre (JNICC) Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. More than 500 international scientists working in the region participated in this biennial event that was characterized by keynote addresses, oral presentations, special sessions and poster presentations. In addition to the scientific sessions, social events were organized to provide an opportunity for scientists to get to know each other.
The symposium started on 30/10/2017 with keynote speeches from the WIOMSA president Dr. Jackline Uku and Minister of Fisheries of Tanzanaia Mr. Luhaga Mpina. A total of forty two oral presentation sessions, 3 keynote presentation sessions, one poster presentations session, and sixteen special sessions took place between 30/10/2017 and 2/11/2017. On the first day of the conference (30/10/2017), I attended all the keynote sessions, which involved the opening ceremony of the conference. Thereafter, I attended the genetic connectivity and biogeography oral presentation sessions, in which I was the rapporteur and one of the presenters. My presentation in this session was entitled “Genetic population structure of the convict surgeonfish Acanthurus triostegus in the Indo-Pacific: insights from mitochondrial DNA”.
The remaining 4 days of the conferences, I had the chance to attend to different oral presentations, special sessions, and poster presentation, which covered topics ranging from effectiveness of marine protected areas to coral reef restoration in the Western Indian Ocean. The WIOMSA conference offered an opportunity to meet new scientist and old colleagues working the Western Indian Ocean region. At the very end of the conference, we were able to establish a new working group of Western Indian Ocean Marine Life Barcoding group(WIO-BOL) that was composed molecular ecologist working in the region.
This was my second WIOMSA scientific symposium to attend and I would like to the ZMT, IFS, and DAAD for providing with the funds that enabled me to travel to this event.
