Dear MARMAM members,
We would like to encourage anyone working in the fields of marine mammal genetics, spatial ecology, or marine spatial planning to attend our full-day workshop "Integrating genetics into the Important Marine
Mammal Area (IMMA) Identification Process" at the Biennial in San Francisco on Sunday, December 13th. Please see an overview of the workshop below or the full description on the SMM
conference website. This workshop will be relatively hands-on with a small number of invited speakers, however if you are interested in presenting please get in touch.
You can register for the workshop through the conference website:
https://www.marinemammalscience.org/conference/conference-registration/.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us via email at
fkershaw@nrdc.org and
hrosenbaum@wcs.org or by phone at +1-212-727-4564 if you have any questions.
We look forward to seeing many of you in December!
Best wishes,
Francine Kershaw & Howard C. Rosenbaum
Integrating genetics into the Important Marine Mammal Area (IMMA) identification process
This workshop aims to address the following question: How can we integrate genetic information into spatial planning tools to support the identification of IMMAs? Genetic information has the potential to be
highly informative in the application of the criteria employed to identify Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs) in a manner that complements and enhances existing approaches based in biodiversity metrics, habitat maps, satellite telemetry studies, and expert
opinion. Therefore, there is a significant need to ensure this data is considered in a systematic way during the IMMA identification process. It is the goal of this workshop to examine how genetic data for marine mammals can be visualized geospatially to support
the identification of IMMAs using the marine spatial planning tool SeaSketch. Developing an approach for integrating genetics into spatial planning for marine mammals also poses a series of unique considerations. For example, many species are highly mobile,
are often only sampled in parts of their geographic range, and display a range of life history behaviors that may result in complex genetic population patterns. The second part of this workshop will focus on developing recommendations on how these issues can
be clearly communicated to planners to ensure that genetic data are correctly interpreted when being used for IMMA identification.
Francine Kershaw, Ph.D.
Marine Mammals Science Fellow
Natural Resources Defense Council
40 W 20th Street
New York, NY 10011 USA
T 212.727.4564
C 917.450.0994
fkershaw@nrdc.org
nrdc.org
https://columbia.academia.edu/francinekershaw
Howard C. Rosenbaum, Ph.D.
Director
Ocean Giants Program
Global Conservation Programs
Wildlife Conservation Society
2300 Southern Blvd.
Bronx, New York 10460 USA
T 718-220-5184
F 718-364-4275
hrosenbaum@wcs.org
http://www.wcs.org/saving-wildlife/ocean-giants.aspx