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American Society of Limnology and Oceanography Summer Meeting.

Santiago de Compostela, Spain
June 19 – 24, 2005.

NOS/NCCOS's Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research is hosting a special session (Applied Ecosystem-level Research to Reverse Coral Reef Degradation, SS07) at the next ASLO summer meeting in Spain (June 19-24, 2005).  Our topic is the use of basic ecosystem research to address resource management needs (hence the applied aspect).  The session description is as follows:

"Coral reefs, one of the most complex marine ecosystems, remain poorly understood and are under intense pressure from anthropogenic disturbance against the background of environmental variability. This has influenced scientists and resource managers to focus on addressing the suite of stressors that affect coral reef ecosystem health. However, the need to devise management strategies has been hampered by the lack of understanding of how coral reef ecosystems function under pristine conditions much less when disturbed. The approach of combining basic research with applied objectives presents an alternative for providing insight on coral reef ecosystem function that also informs resource managers when designing and evaluating management strategies to stop and ultimately reverse coral reef degradation due to human impact. The purpose of this special session is to provide an international forum for scientists and resource managers to 1) provide examples of basic and applied research activities that have management implications; and, 2) share views and evaluate the success of such an approach."

We are encouraging participation from: 1) academic researchers seeking to understand how coral reef ecosystem work, whose results can (or will) inform resource managers when making management decisions and enacting policy; and 2) agency and academic researchers that are engaged in collaborative efforts to devise and implement effective management strategies and policies through basic research. Research findings presented can range from better understanding of specific coral reef phenomena to predictive ecosystem models.

We are interested as well in exploring the practical value of such collaborative efforts between government agencies and academia, so papers from both managers and researchers evaluating the utility of these partnerships (both positive and negative) are welcomed.

For more information: http://aslo.org/santiago2005/