Last week, the Top Predator Group hosted two special guests: Dr Neil Hammerschlag – Research Associate Professor and Director of the Shark Research and Conservation Program (SRC) at the University of Miami, and Beth Bowers – a PhD student and Lab Supervisor at the Elasmobranch Research Laboratory of Florida Atlantic University. The visit provided a great opportunity to present our different studies and share our current hypotheses regarding the shark aggregation phenomenon with some of the foremost researchers in the field.
Last week, the Top Predator Group hosted two special guests: Dr Neil Hammerschlag – Research Associate Professor and Director of the Shark Research and Conservation Program (SRC) at the University of Miami, and Beth Bowers – a PhD student and Lab Supervisor at the Elasmobranch Research Laboratory of Florida Atlantic University. The visit provided a great opportunity to present our different studies and share our current hypotheses regarding the shark aggregation phenomenon with some of the foremost researchers in the field. The first day of the visit was dedicated to fieldwork at the foot of the coastal power station in Hadera. A 2.9 m dusky shark was measured, sampled and tagged, and then set free unscathed. The labs exchanged protocols and raised some new ideas as per how to address the aggregation conundrum. This stemmed new ideas for collaboration, such as comparative studies of these sharks across genetically and geographically-segmented populations, and research into their sensory biology.
On the second day, the teams set out on a tour to the ancient city of the Jerusalem and visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Wailing Wall, and some secret snacks and coffee spots providing for a good welcome.
On Day 3, the scientists participated at the Morris Kahn conference which took place at the Ecoocean venue in Kibbutz Sdot-Yam. Dr Hammerschlag opened the conference with a brilliant keynote talk about top-regulation mechanisms as induced by apex marine predators. Other researchers from the Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences presented their work, including Dr Aviad Scheinin and Eyal Bigal, who talked about progress of the Top Predator Laboratory and its collaborations with partners from throughout the world.
On the fourth day, a roundtable session was conducted to agree on future plans for collaboration and specific challenges that we are facing in our ongoing research. This short visit was concluded particularly fruitful for our labs and it is hoped that, within the near future, we will be reporting new findings of collaborative, international research.
