My passion is bringing creativity, scientific rigour, and practical skills to help your group understand the marine environment at an appropriate level of inquiry. Your firm may already have excellent theoretical ecologists, environmental impact scientists, or policy-makers, but lack cost-effective in-house 
resources to process macrofauna or meiofauna, develop benthic data, procedures, presentations, or instruments. I like to spearhead invertebrate taxonomy work or provide an outside assessment. I can facilitate equipment and study design solutions. I really enjoy supporting the process of how people do science with respect to the actual measurements they need, cutting through false assumptions, and integrating appropriate technology with your existing resources. I like turning ideas into reality.
Experience
I have experience with most aspects of macrofaunal and meiofaunal work. I have designed and undertaken or facilitated surveys from intertidal estuaries to deep oceanic seeps. These include live culture, sampling, preservation, extraction, mounting (community samples or single individuals), and curation work. I especially enjoy working with polychaete fauna, and enthusiastically contribute to educational and interdisciplinary projects that integrate environmental information with biological observations. Our clients have found that I provide special value through my interdisciplinary approaches, personal attention, and my experience integrating use of several of the most important tools in marine science:
Sediment Profile Imagery: SPI-Scan (invented the rotational SPI system), tSPI, and traditional REMOTS-style systems
Bottom Samples: low and high-frequency sidescan sonar survey, analysis/reduction, and mosaicing. Day, VanVeen, US-NEL, Petite Ponar, Ekman, and Petersen grabs. Beach seine nets. Beam, naturalist, and otter trawls. ROVs, drop cameras, photoquadrats, fish, sedentary, and mobile invertebrate video transects including chemical cryptofauna extraction. Manual diver, piston, and multi-corers for biological, nutrient, toxicity, sedimentological, and porewater protocols.
Water Column: CTD, Van Dorn and Nansen bottles. DOBIE wave gauges and Stowaway loggers. GPS drifters. Standard, bongo, vertical, and closing plankton nets. Limnological flow profiling equipment.
Other equipment: Nephelometers; colorimeters; spectrophotometers; pH meters; permeable membrane and FOXY oxygen probes; gas chromatographs; CHN analysers; scanning and transmission electron microscopes; zoom, biological, phase-contrast, and Nomarski interference light micrscope systems; several underwater video, still (wide and macro) photography systems.
Vessels: NZ LLO ticket (R/V Nauplius, R/V Nemo, and M/V Spotty), operations on vessels ranging from 3-75 m OL.
SCUBA Diving: DAN Oxygen provider, OSH/NAUI/PADI certifications (>400 hrs), 100 FSW AAUS rating, tropical and temperate wet- and drysuit diving in blue, open, and semi-confined environments
Computer Application Proficiencies: MATLAB, Minitab, PRIMER, Surfer, SolidWorks, Power CAD Pro, Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Open Office Suite, Adobe Photoshop/Imageready, GoLive, PageMaker, GIMP, ImageJ, Scion, QGIS, Caris' HIPS & SIPS, and familiarity with ARC suite and GRASS GIS.
Paavo, B.L., Jonker, R., Thrush, S., Probert, P.K. (in press) Macrofaunal community patterns of adjacent coastal sediments with wave-reflecting or wave-dissipating characteristics. Journal of Coastal Research.
Probert, P.K., Glasby, C.J., Grove, S.L. Paavo, B.L. (2009) Bathyal polychaete assemblages in the region of the Subtropical Front, Chatham Rise, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 43: 1121-1135.
Paavo, B., Ziegelmeyer, A., Lavric, E., Probert, P.K. (2008) Morphometric correlations and body mass regressions for Armandia maculata, Aglaophamus macroura (Polychaeta), and Zethalia zelandica (Gastropoda). New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 42: 85-91.
Paavo, B. (2007) Soft-sediment benthos of Aramoana and Blueskin Bay (Otago, New Zealand) and effects of dredge-spoil disposal. PhD thesis, University of Otago Department of Marine Science, 498 pages.
Probert, P.K., B. Paavo (2004) Polychaetes. CD-ROM Review. New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 38:753-754
Bailey-Brock, J.H., B. Paavo, B.M. Barrett, and J. Dreyer (2002) Polychaetes associated with a tropical ocean outfall; synthesis of a biomonitoring program off O'ahu, Hawai'i. Pacific Science 56(4):459-479.
Bailey-Brock, J.H., B. Paavo, B.M. Barrett, and J. Dreyer (2001) Changes in pollution indicators at the Sand Island Sewage Outfall. OCEANS 2001 MTS/IEEE Proceedings.
Paavo, B.L., J.H. Bailey-Brock, and B. Akesson (2000) Life history and description of a new species of Ophryotrocha (Polychaeta, Dorvilleidae) associated with the sewage outfalls of O'ahu, Hawai'i. Sarsia 85(3):251-264
Paavo, B.L. (1998) Morphology and life history of an undescribed Ophryotrocha species (Polychaeta: Dorvilleidae) and its possible role as an indicator of organic enrichment. Pacific Science 52(2):191
Selected Consulting Works ('Grey' literature available upon request with due consideration of client confidentiality)
Sediment Profile Imagery Results and Analysis: Seafood Producers Cooperative. Prepared for Haggitt Consulting. (link -when available)
Sediment Profile Imagery Results and Analysis: Sitka Sound Seafoods. Prepared for Haggitt Consulting. (link - link when available)
Benthic habitat structures and macrofauna of lower Otago Harbour. Prepared for Port Otago Limited. (link).
Benthic offshore surveys of proposed dredge spoil disposal sites off Otago Peninsula. Prepared for Port Otago Limited in cooperation with NIWA researchers (link).
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Environmental impacts of dredge spoil from Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i. Prepared for the US federal government and USACE.
Hawai'i Kai Marina: Two years of water quality monitoring. Prepared for the Hawai'i Kai Home Owners Association.
Environmental impacts of Poydactylus sexfilis mariculture. Prepared for the Hawai'i state government.
Invertebrates of Little Harbour, Stewart Island. Prepared for a private client.
Soft-bottom invertebrate communities near dispersive dredge spoil disposal areas off Dunedin, New Zealand. Prepared for the Otago Regional Council and Port Otago Limited.
Marine investigation of the Bluff municipal sewage outfall. Prepared for the Invercargill City Council.
International Polychaete Conference, Lecce, Italy 2010 Here I come!
New Zealand Marine Sciences Society Conference, Christchurch 2008
Paavo, B.L.
Oral Presentation: Benthic habitats of lower Otago Harbour
Poster Presentation: BioTally: a biological solution you can count on!
International Polychaete Conference, University of Maine, USA 2007
Paavo, B.L.
Poster Presentation: SPI-Scan: Affordable Sediment Profile Imagery
New Zealand Marine Sciences Society Conference, Nelson 2006
Paavo, B.L.
Oral Presentation: Dispersive dredge spoil disposal in New Zealand
Sediment Profile Imagery Conference, Galway, Ireland 2006
Paavo, B.L.
Oral Presentation: Convergent evolution: the NZ SPI-Scan system
New Zealand Marine Sciences Society Conference, Wellington, 2005
Paavo, B.L. and P.K. Probert
Oral Presentation: Effects of dredge spoil disposal on macrofauna of wave-dominated soft-sediments
Paavo, B.L.
Poster Presentation: Affordable sediment profile imagery v2
New Zealand Marine Sciences Society Conference, Dunedin, June 2004
Paavo, B.L.
Oral Presentation: Soft-bottom invertebrate assemblages near dredge spoil disposal areas
Paavo, B.L.
Poster Presentation: Simulated dredge spoil burial of Zethalia zelandica (Winner of "Best Southland Poster' prize)
Joint conference of the New Zealand Marine Sciences Society and the Australasian Society for Phycology and Aquatic Botany, Auckland, September 2003
Paavo, B.L.
Poster Presentation: Affordable sediment profile imagery (Winner of "Best Poster" and "Most Technologically Innovative" prizes)
Paavo, B.L.
Albert Tester Memorial Symposium, Honolulu 1996
Paavo, B.L.
Morphology and life history of an undescribed species of Ophryotrocha (Polychaeta: Dorvilleidae)
