Did you know that REEF is part of an international effort to determine how to best use large fish biodiversity datasets? REEF Co-Executive Director of Science & Engagement Dr. Christy Semmens is part of a working group called "CoNCENSUS: Advancing standardisation of COastal and Nearshore demersal fish visual CENSUS techniques", led by Anthony Bernard from the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity and Rick Stuart-Smith from Reef Life Survey. Christy will attend the upcoming CoNCENSUS working group meeting in South Africa this October. Previous meetings have been held virtually, as well as an in-person meeting in Australia.

Various researchers and organizations, including REEF, are collecting vast datasets of fish biodiversity information, often with different methodologies and stored in a variety of data structures. The goals of this multi-year effort are to develop and implement guidelines and protocols for the collection, management, and organization of fish survey observations based on traditional and novel methodologies in order to provide recommendations on how best to utilize data from multiple methods to monitor and study coastal fish populations from local to global scales. CoNCENSUS will also develop processes and tools for the management, publication, and visualization of open-access data.

Fishes play a critical role in coastal ecosystems and provide nutrition and livelihoods for millions of people, but face many threats. Broad-scale datasets, such as that generated by the REEF Volunteer Fish Survey Project, can help provide context to evaluate the most important and widespread threats to fish and associated ecosystems around the world. CoNCENSUS aims to develop a global community of practice that is able to bring these important datasets together to lay the foundation for relevant and sustained research that encourages capacity development, furthers our fundamental understanding of coastal ecosystems, and provides essential support for policy and decision makers.

Funding for the working group is provided by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research of the International Science Council.