Dear colleagues:
Apologies for cross posting!
We would like to inform you of the workshop to be held at the 21st
Biennal Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in San
Francisco.
ECOLOGICAL ROLES AND IMPORTANCE OF MARINE MAMMALS IN AQUATIC
ECOSYSTEMS
Date/time: Saturday, December 12th, 2015. From 830am to 530pm.
Organizers and contact email: Jeremy Kiszka, Michael Heithaus
(Florida International University) and Peter Corkeron (NOAA)
Contact email: jeremy.kiszka@gmail.com
Description: Top predators have the potential to impact ecosystems
through direct predation, risk effects, and their interaction as
well as through “bottom-up” processes stimulating primary production
(“ecosystem engineers”) or moving nutrients across ecosystem
boundaries. Recently, it has been argued that strong top-down
effects of predators are likely the rule rather than the exception
based on the broad-scale community rearrangements that accompany the
loss or reintroduction of top predators. Marine mammals, including
some freshwater species, feed at a variety of trophic levels, from
herbivores to large apex predators, and occur from freshwater to
open ocean systems of all latitudes. Due to their high abundance and
considerable energetic needs as homeotherms, they have a strong
potential affect the structure and function of ecosystems. In
addition, due to their size and large movements, often across
ecosystem boundaries, aquatic mammals might also influence nutrient
dynamics within and among ecosystems. Because of historical and
ongoing changes in aquatic mammal abundances and distributions,
their function in aquatic ecosystems likely has been, and continues
to be, altered. Therefore, investigating the ecological roles and
importance of these species represents a major challenge for
research. Empirical evidence of the ecological roles of aquatic
mammals is still lacking or incomplete in most cases. While some
species have been shown to play crucial roles in marine systems, but
how the relative importance of aquatic mammals varies within and
among species, ecosystems and contexts remains underexplored.
This workshop will review empirical and ecosystem modeling
studies on the ecological role of mammals in aquatic ecosystems
and attempt to bring together the two major strands of research
(top-down and bottom up processes) together. The audience of this
workshop is likely to be very broad, from marine mammal and
fishery ecologists to conservationists. Secondly, we will discuss
approaches for investigating the roles of marine mammals in
aquatic ecosystems and work towards a predictive framework for
marine mammal ecological roles.
This will be a full day workshop divided into two main sections.
The first (morning) will be dedicated to case studies and review
presentations on the role of various aquatic mammal species in
various ecological contexts (10-15 min presentations with 5
minutes for questions and comments). The second section
(afternoon) will focus on discussions and round tables, especially
to enhance approaches to investigating the role of marine mammals
in aquatic ecosystems.
Cost: $80 (early bird), $90 (after September 15th, 2015)
For more information:
https://www.marinemammalscience.org/conference/workshops/#ecological
or please contact me!
See you there!
Jeremy Kiszka, Peter Corkeron and Mike Heithaus
--
Jeremy Kiszka (PhD)
Marine Sciences Program, Florida International University
3000 NE 151 St., FL-33181, North Miami, USA.
Tel office (direct): (305)-919-4104
Cell: (786)-717-9797
Skype: jeremy.kiszka
The Heithaus lab: http://www2.fiu.edu/~heithaus/
|
L'absence de virus dans ce courrier électronique a été vérifiée par le logiciel antivirus Avast.
www.avast.com
|