[Coral-List] Call for abstracts - ICRS 2020 – how will coral reef ecosystem services change? (Anna Woodhead)

[Woodhead, Anna]

We are inviting abstracts for our session on coral reef ecosystem services at ICRS 2020. As a panel, we’re particularly interested in exploring what the diversity of approaches applied to coral reef ecosystem services can tell us about past, current and future changes in reef services. This session sits under theme 3 of the ICRS program “Ecosystem functions and services” (http://www.icrs2020.de/program/session-program/#c235).

*Session title*: How will coral reef ecosystem services change?

*Panel*: Anna Woodhead (Lancaster University, UK), Ruth Thurstan (University of Exeter, UK), Tomas Chaigneau (University of Exeter, UK), Susan Yee (U.S. Environment Protection Agency, USA)

*Description*: Coral reef ecosystems underpin important benefits to people, known as ecosystem services. These contribute to human wellbeing but with current and future changes to reef social-ecological systems, how have and how will ecosystem services on coral reefs change? Ecosystem services occur via interactions between social and ecological systems, hence changes in ecosystem services could arise from ecological change, social change or multiple combinations therein. These might lead to emerging services, for instance the tropicalisation of temperate areas could underpin new fisheries. Changes in the use and importance of services could also occur. For example, changes in the socio-economic circumstances of individuals can modify the processes and motivations behind service use. Biophysical, social, economic and cultural changes all affect past and future coral reef ecosystem services, thus accurately capturing and predicting these interactions will require a broad disciplinary approach.

We invite abstracts from different disciplines, looking at different ecosystem service types that address one or more of the following: *Evidence of changes in coral reef ecosystem services following social and/or ecological change in tropical coastal areas; *Novel approaches to capturing ecosystem service change. This could include looking to the future (e.g. scenarios) or to the past (e.g. syntheses of historical data); *Conceptual development and future directions. This could consider the types of evidence, knowledge and values that will be needed, as well as governance and management structures of coral reef social-ecological systems.

Submissions should make explicit the approach they are taking towards capturing ecosystem services (e.g. historical ecology, ecological economics, contributions to wellbeing etc.). The session discussion will summarise how each talk addressed change in coral reef social-ecological systems with view to synthesising this work in an opinion piece.

We look forward to hearing from you and please don’t hesitate to get in touch with any questions!

Best,
Anna Woodhead