Citizens of the Sea (CotS), a New Zealand-based charitable trust, empowers ocean-going vessels with innovative, user-friendly toolkits to collect biogeophysical data and eDNA samples across vast open ocean regions. By leveraging cutting-edge molecular technologies, CotS transforms these datasets into a comprehensive spatio-temporal catalogue of marine biodiversity and ocean health indicators. The initiative fosters collaboration among diverse stakeholders, including sailors, government agencies, NGOs, scientists, and indigenous communities, to drive actionable marine conservation. In its inaugural year, CotS has forged strategic partnerships with scientific and conservation organizations in Tonga, Fiji, and New Caledonia, culminating in a groundbreaking 26-vessel sampling campaign. This keynote will unveil preliminary findings from the largest open-ocean eDNA dataset ever collected in the Pacific, showcasing its potential to revolutionize ocean health monitoring and inform sustainable management across oceanic regions.
Biography
Xavier leads the Molecular Surveillance team at the Cawthron Institute, New Zealand, and is an Associate Professor at University of Auckland. Of Swiss origin, it is against all odds that he became a marine biologist with an academic background in coral reefs symbioses, diversity, ecology and evolution. His passion for the Ocean and contagious enthusiasm for marine discoveries have naturally led Xavier to conduct more than 20 years of exciting research throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Established in New Zealand since 2012, Xavier’s current research involves the use of environmental DNA (eDNA) to monitor aquatic ecosystems. Xavier is a co-founder and the science lead of Citizens Of The Sea.