The Philipine Association of Marine Science held its 12th National symposium in the University of the Philippines – Visayas, Tacloban College and was scheduled from October 24 – 26, 2013.

The symposium was attended by four Research assistants from the Aurora Marine Research and Development Institute, namely For. Jestonee Bitong, Kristine Rose Doringo, Mary Jane Aragon and Karl Thomas Olivar.

PAMS symposium is conducted once every two years and this years marks the 12th time sice it occured on 1990. This years theme is Marine Biodiversity Conservation: Key for sustaining Ecosystem goods and services.

On the first day of the event researchers displayed their poster entitled “Diversity and Spatial distribution of Marine Benthic Macrophytes in Cemento, Baler, Aurora”. The posters were placed in the campus catwalk for everyone to see until the end of the symposium.

PAMS 12 began with an opening program with remarks and words from the organizers and key persons. Various topics were presented during the 3-day symposium. The presentations were in parallel sessions with topics ranging from Coastal fisheries, Ecosystem goods and services, Biology of benthic invertebrates, Oceanography and Marine Geology, Climate change impacts and adaptation, Conservation of threatened marine species, Coastal resource management, Fish and Coral ecology, MPA’s, Restoration ecology, Plankton ecology, Pelagic fisheries and human impacts on the coastal environment.

On the last day of the symposium, Bitong presented their study entitled “Preliminary Comparative Analysis of Fish Community Structure in Cozo, Casiguran, Aurora Province” under the mangrove sea grass ecology category.
After all of the presentations, on the same night, the closing and awarding ceremonies were held ending the symposium.