Also a champion for coral reefs and cowrie snails, Dr Neo Mei Lin finds ways to improve and protect marine ecosystems. Read more at straitstimes.com.
For nearly 20 years, marine scientist Neo Mei Lin has been fighting to save the giant clam, the unsung hero of the ocean. The clam helps remove pollutants from water, shelter fish and crabs, and produces material that builds up coral reefs. But it is increasingly under threat from climate change, pollution and poachers.
"When I started this project, I didn’t know if I’ll succeed. But when I did – and also later growing them big enough for the reefs – it was an almost surreal feeling and I’m definitely happy to have grown them from scratch."Find out how Dr Neo Mei Lin and her team grow corals in the laboratory With the fellowship, the “Giant Clam Girl” – as she is affectionately known as in her field – has been reaching out to regional researchers to seek information on their areas’ giant clam populations. This month, she conducted an in-person workshop to discuss the conservation and management of giant clams with relevant stakeholders from South-east Asia.
One of the methods she and her team is employing requires fragmenting corals collected from the seabed and attaching them onto Lego bricks to regrow. Once the fragments grow to a healthy size, they are transplanted back into the sea and the bricks are used again for future reef regeneration projects.
With the cowrie snail, she is starting from scratch. “We’re working on the tiger cowrie, one of the largest species. When we did a literature review, we found one paper on how to rear them in an aquarium. We had nothing to go on, except that single study.” Dr Neo’s research on the boring giant clam – “so-called because they burrow into the seabed, not because of their nature” – has been met with several challenges, including the inconsistent production of eggs and sperm needed to produce viable larvae.
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