[Coral-List] 13ICRS Session #50: Modeling and computational tools for coral reef management and conservation

[James Hendee]

Greetings,

    Please consider submitting an abstract to Session #50 of the 13th
International Coral Reef Symposium (http://sgmeet.com/icrs2016/default.asp):

    *Session 50*: Modeling and computational tools for coral reef
    management and conservation

    *Description:* 
    https://www.sgmeet.com/icrs2016/sessionschedule.asp?SessionID=50

    *Submission Information*: 
    http://sgmeet.com/icrs2016/submission_overview.asp
     
    Organizing chairs for this combined session are:
    James Hendee, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
    jim.hendee at noaa.gov
    Elizabeth Drenkard, Environmental Sciences Department, Rutgers
    University, liz at envsci.rutgers.edu 
    Mehmet M. Dalkilic, Indiana University, dalkilic at indiana.edu

    *
    **Session #50 is a merge of the following three sessions:*

    *#15    Ecological Forecasting for Coral Reef Ecosystems:  Improving
    Support for Management and Stakeholder*s
    Jim Hendee, NOAA
    Allison Allen, NOAA
    Karsten Shein, NOAA
    Carrie Manfrino, Central Caribbean Mar. Inst.

    ABSTRACT: Ecological forecasting, or ecoforecasting, such as the
    prediction of coral bleaching, faunal migrations, upwelling, or
    spawning events, could help managers with resource planning, but
    could also help stakeholders in their livelihoods or enjoyment of
    coral reef ecosystems. However, incorrect ecoforecasts could, for
    the public, reduce credibility of managers, conservationists, and
    scientists who help in the formulation of the ecoforecasts. This
    session is intended to help explore the process of conducting a
    needs assessment for the different types of managers and
    stakeholders for the purpose of building ecoforecasts; the process
    of building an ecoforecast; improving the necessary field validation
    of ecoforecasts; determining how ecological forecasts are utilized
    and what the shortcomings might be; and how ecoforecasts can be
    fine-tuned in a more streamlined and cost-effective fashion.
    Applicants to this session could be a manager who expresses a need
    for an ecoforecast (and why), an application programmer who would
    discuss the pros and cons of their approach, a field biologist or
    technician who could explain a protocol for continuing ecoforecast
    feedback and fine-tuning, or a manager or stakeholder who explains
    how ecoforecasts have helped them in the past. This session intends
    to build capacity for ecoforecasting expertise and management
    utilization.

    *#59    Advances in Physical and Ecological Modeling to Improve Reef
    Resilience and Management*
    Liz Drenkard, Rutgers Univ.
    Sean Connolly, James Cook Univ.
    Joan Kleypas, NCAR
    Pete Mumby, Univ. QLD

    ABSTRACT:  Reef ecosystem managers are tasked with protecting
    valuable living marine resources against a growing number of threats
    from climate change and local stressors. Oceanographic and ecosystem
    models are non-invasive tools for testing hypotheses regarding
    ecosystem vulnerabilities and resilience, which can then be used to
    guide the development of effective conservation strategies. Advances
    in numerical techniques and computing power are increasing the
    capacity of models to tackle reef-relevant topics such as climate
    variability, physical ocean processes, ocean biogeochemistry, stress
    responses, reef connectivity, and ecosystem dynamics. We invite
    submissions that share modeling approaches to quantifying and
    characterizing threats to coral reef ecosystems, from global to reef
    spatial scales. We especially welcome studies that provide new
    insights into reef vulnerability or resilience as a result of
    rigorous modeling practices, such as those that address model
    uncertainty.

    *#108   System-wide solutions built from computational perspectives*
    Mehmet Dalkilic, Indiana Univ.
    Claudia Johnson, Indiana Univ.
    Charles Beeker, Indiana Univ.

    In addressing broad topics affecting the reef ecosystem's climate
    and coral demise, ecosystem products and economic benefits,
    biogeographic shifts of species and associated communities we are
    faced with scientific problems whose scope overlaps too many
    disparate scientific communities and whose scale is so immense that
    only a system-wide solution built from a computational perspective
    can yield any reasonable answers. This is a new paradigm of inquiry
    that rewrites the traditional, isolated and monotypic scientific
    method and has shown remarkable successes, e.g., genomics. This
    session brings together reef ecosystem researchers and computer
    scientists to foster a community, built on a computational
    perspective, to yield better, quicker science and, consequently,
    drive improved policies for reefs as well as educating the public on
    this vital and sensitive resource. Outcomes are to identify the kind
    of format of data researchers need, how hypotheses can be scaled
    system-wide, how to most effectively house and share data with
    minimal amount of resources (i.e., open-source), and an exposition
    of data science techniques to develop skills for small groups of
    researchers.