[Coral-List] ICRS 2022 workshop WS2 "How do we best design, validate, and monitor test-beds for radical reef intervention?" (Dr. Diane Thompson, University of Arizona, Biosphere 2)

[Grambihler, Renee Nicole - (grambihler)]

Hello,

We will be hosting ICRS 2022 workshop WS2 "How do we best design, validate, and monitor test-beds for radical reef intervention?"

Date/Time/Place: Monday 04.07.22, 14.50 - 17.30 CEST, Salon Bergen

If you are interested in attending our workshop, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/5RvomgntXFoVtKAL6<https://forms.gle/5RvomgntXFoVtKAL6>

Organizers: Drs. Diane Thompson (University of Arizona, Biosphere 2), Craig Humphrey (AIMS), Julia Cole (University of Michigan), Ty Roach (HIMB), Raquel Peixoto (KAUST)

Goals:

  1.  Identify grand challenges for radical reef intervention, and the unique role for testbeds (e.g., mesocosms) in this research
  2.  Identify existing challenges or limitations, and how best to design, validate, and monitor testbeds for reef intervention
  3.  Build collaborative relationships for research and funding opportunities

Full session proposal:

Decades of coral reef research have improved our understanding of the building blocks of reef resilience – the critical processes and mechanisms; however, the coral reef community now recognizes the urgent need to apply this knowledge and move from processes to solutions.  Innovative initiatives have yielded advances in techniques for reef restoration and increasing resilience through interventions such as stress hardening, probiotic treatment, phage therapy, and assisted evolution.  These approaches offer great potential for (re)building resilient reefs that can better withstand warming and acidification.  We identify a growing need to test these solutions in controlled environments before they are applied in the wild.

Mesocosms provide an opportunity to bridge the gap between observational and experimental studies to test these novel (even risky) solutions at reef scales. They mimic natural reefs while offering control of environmental conditions and an ability to simulate future climate variability and change. By capturing many intrinsic processes, mesocosms allow these solutions to be scaled up to test novel interactions across levels of complexity, species, functional groups, and trophic levels.

Given their potential impact on reef management and restoration, such experiments must be thoughtfully designed, validated, and monitored to address potential limitations and increase the applicability of the findings to natural reefs. Despite challenges, mesocosm experiments from the Biosphere 2 and SeaSim have contributed to significant advances in our understanding of reef resilience. This workshop aims to foster collaboration among international reef scientists interested in leveraging these and similar facilities to identify the opportunities and challenges for the next generation of mesocosm experiments to test radical reef solutions (see guiding questions, below).

Guiding Questions:

  1.  What big questions/ideas could be (uniquely) addressed in existing testbeds (mesocosms and experimental facilities)?
  2.  How are these systems uniquely poised as testbeds for reef intervention?  What are some challenges and/or critiques of this approach?
  3.  How do we best design, validate, and monitor test-beds for radical reef intervention?

Agenda:

Part 1: Monday 04/07 (14:50-17:00) in the Salon Bergen

14.50 – 15.20 | Welcome Remarks and testbed overviews:

·         Biosphere 2

·         AIMS / SeaSim

·         HIMB

·         KAUST

·         Workshop goals

·         Participant introductions (if time/group size allows)

15.20 – 16.30 | Group or Breakout Group Discussion:

·         Overarching big questions & opportunities

·         Design, validation, and monitoring

        16:30 – 17:00 | Wrap-up Discussion:

·         Wrap up & summarize goals, strategies

·         Next steps and timelines

Part 2: Workshop follow-up/working groups. Time & location: TBD

1 hour: Mesocosms as model systems – research priorities & experimental design (“Mini-proposals”)

30 mins – 1 hour: Mini-proposal synthesis/wrap-up discussion
_______________________________
Dr. Diane Thompson (she/her/hers)
Director of Marine Research, Biosphere 2
Assistant Professor, Department of Geosciences
University of Arizona
1040 E 4th St
Tucson, AZ 85721
https://uathompsonlab.com/