This week I am attending the Society for Marine Mammalogy biennial conference in San Francisco. Around 3,000 marine mammal researchers have descended on the city for a week of workshops, talks, posters and get-togethers. I’ll be speaking on Thursday about our work on the whale gut microbiome.

Today I saw a variety of fascinating talks ranging from ancient whale dietary transitions (Robert Gooddall), to the use of DNA sequencing to determine prey biomass in pinniped feces (Austen Thomas), to the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on bottlenose dolphin population dynamics and immune function (Lori Schwacke; Teri Rowles; Sylvain De Guise), to the use of gene expression data in understanding factors affecting population decline in sea otters (Elizabeth Bowen).

More updates to come during the week.