Senckenberg Ocean Species Alliance

Nested within the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Frankfurt, Germany, SOSA has grown into a trusted partner in our shared mission to describe new species.

In 2019, Jannes met Senckenberg Ocean Species Alliance’s (SOSA) co-chair Dr. Torben Riehl at a crustacean meeting in Hong Kong. Many years later, Torben and the SOSA team invited colleagues from around the world to join their Ocean Species Discoveries programme.

We felt deeply honoured to have one of our South African species described and named in SOSA’s first global collaborative paper, helping to accelerate the discovery of marine invertebrates. In parallel, Sea Change member and nature storyteller Swati Thiyagaragan joined SOSA’s advisory board. In 2025, Jannes visited the institute in Frankfurt to work alongside the SOSA team, describing new marine invertebrates and exchanging knowledge to lighten the workload and strengthen expertise.

SOSA’s taxonomy pipeline has transformed what is often a slow and challenging process into something more collaborative, inclusive, and even enjoyable. We look forward to nurturing this partnership, which has the potential to build capacity, advance science, and benefit both our teams as well as the wider research community.