Last week Sally and Jan, together with Nerida Wilson from Western Australian Museum, visited our collaborators Prof Tim Naish and A/Prof Nick Golledge at the Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand to discuss about how the past Antarctic Ice Sheet configurations influenced population genetics in the Southern Ocean. We aim to combine genetics and glaciology to reconstruct the past collapses of West Antarctic Ice sheet. Watch this space!

During our trip to New Zealand we also took the opportunity to visit the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in Wellington to sample benthic critters for our Southern Ocean genetics projects. With a wealth of Antarctic biodiversity preserved, this collection is like a treasure box to us! Thank you Sadie Smith for hosting us!