AAAS - New Approaches to Conserving Marine Animals in a Dynamic Ocean
| MEETING: |
AAAS Annual Meeting and Science Innovation Exposition |
| TRACK: |
Living Oceans and Coastlines |
| TITLE: |
New Approaches to Conserving Marine Animals in a Dynamic Ocean |
| DATE: |
Friday, February 13 |
| TIME: |
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon |
| ORGANIZERS: |
Larry B. Crowder, Duke University Marine Laboratory |
| PARTICIPANTS: |
- Barbara Block (S4-Speaker), Stanford University: Tagging of Pacific Pelagics
- Jeff Polovina (S4-Speaker), NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center: The North Pacific Front: A Dynamic Habitat for Sea Turtles
- Scott Shaffer (S4-Speaker), University of California Santa Cruz: Satellite Telemetry of Seabirds
- Pat Halpin (S4-Speaker), Duke University: Innovations In Marine Spatial Analysis
- Andy Read (S4-Speaker), Duke University Marine Laboratory: OBIS SEAMAP: Mapping Marine Megavertebrates
- Elliott Norse (S4-Speaker), Marine Conservation Biology Institute: The Potential for Pelagic Marine Reserves
| SYNOPSIS: |
| The oceans cover over 70% of our blue planet. The mysteries about how large marine wildlife species like bluefin tuna, sea turtles, marine mammals, and seabirds use this large, dynamic environment have only recently been explored. Recent technological and conceptual advances include remote sensing of ocean processes and habitats (e.g., mesoscale eddies, frontal systems), instruments that remotely monitor the movements, activity, and physiological response of marine organisms (e.g., diving activity, body temperature), and visualization and analysis tools (e.g., GIS, geostatistics) that provide a coherent picture of the everyday life of marine megavertebrates. Increasingly, scientists can follow individual animals as they move through patchy seascapes, and so gain insights into how these marine predators make decisions about where, when, and how to forage. Geostatistical techniques and GIS have revolutionized terrestrial conservation, but similar spatial analyses have faced great obstacles in marine systems, where habitats are dynamic and ephemeral. New technologies offer valuable insights into the basic ecology of poorly understood pelagic predators, as well as a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities for their conservation. In particular, improved knowledge of habitat use patterns and movements of marine megavertebrates is essential to identify potential threats and to delineate the national responsibilities for their conservation. Here we focus on new technological and conceptual innovations that allow scientists to study highly migratory species in their dynamic ocean environment. Because the time and space scales for monitoring the ocean environment and marine megavertebrates are converging, researchers now use novel marine spatial ecology techniques to integrate the disparate perspectives (e.g., telemetry, remote sensing) required to study the habits and habitats of these far-ranging predators. In particular, the ability to place the behavior of marine megavertebrates in a larger oceanographic context is essential to design effective conservation measures to mitigate anthropogenic impacts. |
Last modified
2004-01-21 10:55 AM
European Seabirds at Sea published
