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| Agency overview | |
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| Formed |
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| Headquarters | Somerset Street, Makhanda,  South Africa33°18.593′S 26°31.152′E / 33.309883°S 26.519200°E |
| Parent department | Department of Science and Innovation |
| Parent agency | National Research Foundation |
| Website | https://saiab.ac.za |
The South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB), is involved in research, education and in applications of its knowledge and research to African fish fauna, for either economic or conservation benefit.
The institute originally established in 1969, was formerly named the JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology, in honour of Professor James Leonard Brierley Smith, who named and described the living coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae. The JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology received recognition as a national research entity, renamed as the South African Institute of Aquatic Biodiversity in 1999.[1]
Situated in Makhanda, Eastern Cape, the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB) is an internationally recognised centre for the study of aquatic biodiversity.
As a National Facility of the NRF, SAIAB serves as a major scientific resource for knowledge and understanding the biodiversity and functioning of globally significant aquatic ecosystems. With both marine and freshwater biogeographical boundaries, southern Africa is ideally placed to monitor and document climate change.
From a marine perspective South Africa forms the southern apex of a major continental mass, flanked by very different marine ecosystems on the east and west coasts, and projecting towards the cold southern Ocean large marine ecosystem. SAIAB's scientific leadership and expertise in freshwater aquatic biodiversity is vital to the national interest when dealing with issues arising from exponentially increasing pressures of human population growth and development.
YouTube Encyclopedic
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1/3Views:2 2104 771997
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Laurent Ballesta presents "Projet Gombessa"
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Marine Conservation Philippines
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MammalMAP: The African Mammal Atlas Project
Transcription
Hello, my name is Laurent Ballesta, underwater biologist, diver and photographer. At the beginning of this project, there is a fish: the Coelacanth Locally called "Gombessa". This fish is legendary, because we thought it was extinct since 65 million years at the same period as the dinosaurs. But in 1938, one specimen has been found in a fishnet here in South Africa. At first, nobody believes it and a controversy emerges worldwide between experts because this fish isn't a random fish. It carries within itself the traces of the life’s transition from water to land It carries within its fins the primer bones and legs of land animals It carries within itself a primitive lung. First of all, this fish is extremely rare there are probably less Coelacanths in the oceans than pandas on earth. Then it is inaccessible, it lives in great depths often in caverns. All this combined generated enormous passions which caused the Coelacanth revealed its secrets one by one since it was discovered in 1938. I've been passioned with the Coelacanth ever since I was an underwater biology student. It is an essential animal ever since you start studying. But when I was a student, the idea of encountering one was a complete utopia since we knew it was living so deep, there were neither the techniques to achieve such dives neither the knowledge of the exact locations where it was living. But then, a major happening occured. While diving at 100 meters deep, Peter Timm, a South-African diver encountered a Coelacanth by chance. It was back in the year 2000. Immediately after this discovery, other divers tried to film and photograph it. Two divers died in these extremely difficult dives. It took ten years to my team and I before feeling ready for these dives We came in 2010 and had the indescribable joy of being the firsts able to take images a Coelacanth and a diver. It was an unforgettable moment, but some frustrations remained, at least for me. Of course we had achieved the diving challenge, we had got an exclusive image but on the scientific side, we had brought nothing new. This is why we come back today in 2013, for a scientific expedition with great expectations towards unerstanding what the Coelacanth is. Many protocols will be set to get to a better understanding of its movements its distribution, the size of its population and through a better knowledge, help protecting it because the Coelacanth remains a very rare animal, and therefore extremely threatened even if it lived since the dawn of times. We hope we will help in understanding this animal and we hope to bring back a beautiful story through a movie which will be available on the TV channel "Arte" at the end of the year. Goodbye.
Special Collections
SAIAB is home to the Margaret Smith Library, named in honour of the first Director of the JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology[2][3]
Affiliations
- Rhodes University, Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science[4]
References
- ^ SAIAB. "Feature". SAIAB. NRF. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
- ^ SAIAB. "Library". SAIAB. National Research Foundation. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
- ^ Rhodes University (8 December 2015). "Margaret Smith Library SAIAB". Rhodes University. Rhodes University. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
- ^ Office of the Vice-Chancellor (2004). Memorandum of Understanding between Rhodes University and the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB). Grahamstown: Rhodes University.
External links
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This page was last edited on 2 August 2023, at 12:56