🔎It's time to put the spotlight on another one of our dedicated volunteers! This time we're chatting with Dr Meryl (Mez) Larkin; an RLS trainer and board member who's been with us for over a decade. Let's dive into Meryl's journey with Reef Life Survey, from epic survey expeditions to scientific publications in high-impact journals. We can't thank Mez enough for her longstanding (and ongoing) contributions of time, skill, and dedication to the organisation🫶 📷 All photos by Mez (@mermezz) #marinescience #marinebiology #citizenscience #scuba #scubadiving (fb)

🐠A flashback to our 2025 Wadjemup/Rottnest Island training and survey effort. Our team of five trainees and four existing RLS divers completed 16 surveys across 8 sites inside and outside marine sanctuary zones, recording 129 species and 15,930 individual fishes and invertebrates. 📈These efforts are vital to maintaining the long-term time series database that has been ongoing at Wadjemup since 2008. This time series enables us to capture changes in the ecology of this place, which is home to a high diversity and abundance of life beneath the waves where diverse assemblages of temperate and subtropical species inhabit coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and rocky algal beds. 🙌Thank you to our incredible trainers and volunteers for their efforts to bring about the next generation of WA RLS volunteers through this training session. An especially big thankyou to trainer Meryl Larkin, coordinator Paul Day, The Rottnest Island Authority, and Bucket List Diver- we couldn't have done it without you all! 🌊Wadjemup holds profound cultural importance to the Traditional Owners of this land and sea country, the Whadjuk Noongar people. We acknowledge that the island is a place of mourning for the Aboriginal men and boys who rest there, and is a vital site of Aboriginal heritage and reconciliation. We have felt incredibly privileged to be able to work and stay on the island in years past. 🎥 Footage and editing by Lexi Lewis Rottnest Island, Western Australia #wadjemup#rottnestisland#rottnestislandwa#scuba#scubadiving#marinescience#marinebiology#citizenscience (fb)