Salome Buglass, a PhD student at UBC Geography and the Institute for the Ocean and Fisheries, is researching deep-sea and mesophotic communities. As part of her thesis she is investigating a novel discovery: an extensive mesophotic kelp forest found unexpectedly in the Galapagos. Planning to embark on a research trip in 2022, Buglass wants to address important questions about these kelp forests; such as, are they relics remains from a colder past or prominent habitats hiding in deeper waters where they play a key role in sustaining Galapagos’ marine biodiversity. With less than 30 per cent of funding left to secure for her field trip, support in any way would help her efforts immensely. For this she has turned to crowdfunding.
While working as a researcher for the Charles Darwin Foundation in 2018, Salome accidentally uncovered these kelp forests in the Galapagos. Excited by this surprising discovery, she was also confused. “Tall growing macroalgae forests are highly productive and important for marine biodiversity, but are found in cold parts of the world like Alaska and Patagonia,” she stated in a 2019 National Geographic Society talk. “It was like finding a polar bear in Barbados.”
The discovery intrigued Buglass, and she decided to investigate these forests for her PhD research work. Planning to return to the Galapagos in the summer 2022, Buglass intends to continue collecting data on these mesophotic kelp forests. Her field study aims to characterize these novel ecosystems and assess their abundance/distribution across the region and potential role as mesophotic biodiversity hotspots and thermal refugia.
Collecting data at depths beyond conventional scuba diving limits is challenging and costly, particularly in the remote Galapagos archipelago. To pull this off as grad student requires being collaborative and innovative, particularly when it comes to fundraising.
As such, Buglass launched a crowdfunding campaign with the Experiment – who provide an online platform to host the campaigns, but also finds and matches donors with research projects in need. Experiment has already pledged to support Salome’s project with $5,000 donations from the Smith Marine Technological Solution, however as this is “All or Nothing” campaign, Buglass needs to meet her funding goal ($8,250), otherwise, all donations raised will be returned to donors. Her deadline is January 3rd, 2022.
“This project brings back the stark reality of how little we actually understand about what lies beneath in our oceans’ deeper zones.” Buglass states. “What we do know is that we’re creating irreversible changes to our oceans, which is why it’s more important than ever to continue exploring, understanding, and sharing what we find in the deep. How can we protect and manage our ecosystems if we don’t even know what exists?”
For Giving Tuesday, the IOF invites everyone to support Buglass’s unique research by not only donating if possible, but by also sharing her project campaign among your networks to those interested in supporting marine conservation, science, technology and Black women in STEM.
- Click to learn more about the campaign and to DONATE!
- Click the link to Salome Buglass’s 2019 National Geographic Society talk
Tags: crowdfunding, Fieldwork, fundraiser, Galápagos, IOF students, kelp, Research