Release date: 9 Feb 2016
MARES is an international conference organized each year by the MARES European doctoral program for researchers and students in marine conservation. This conference was held in Olhão, Portugal, 1-5 Feb. 2016.
We made two contributions this year, one in the poster session on Habitat loss and ocean noise, and a second in the presentations about Biodiversity effects.
Poster session, 4 Feb 2016
This year we contributed to a poster about the goals of three PhD projects starting this year on a new approach to environmental impact analysis in aquatic environments. This important topic is being addressed from several different angles: the model decision framework for evaluating receptors and ecosystem processes, integrating monitoring data into a hydrodynamic modeling framework which can be coupled with the ecosystem processes, and developing a multi-dimensional monitoring and data collection systems which can feed the models with appropriate data and provide a means to confirm or reject certain decisions.
The work presented describes the first joint research undertaken by the GLG Consortium. A big thanks to Gravity Consulting, LimOce Environmental Consulting and the DEME Group for making this a success!
A copy of our poster can be downloaded here from Zenodo.
Talk, 4 Feb 2016
In the session on "Biodiversity Effects", two members of EBLab gave a joint presentation at the conference on alternative stable states in marine metacommunities and the risk of unintended consequences in marine protected areas. We show that the Hill function used to twist the plotted relationships in the theory of alternative stable states to produce "tipping points" (e.g. Fig. 18 of GBO-3 in 2010) is unnecessary, and that other equally valid mathematical descriptions exist. We suggest that the flux of arrivals from other sites in a metacommunity framework can provide a reasonable, testable explanation for MPA functioning without the Hill function.
This work will be submitted to Ecology Letters.
IMAGE: Early morning view of the Algarve coast from the conference hotel. J. Coston-Guarini, 2016.