NSF Workshop on Population Connectivity in Marine Systems

海洋生态学的一个中心目标是对调节海洋种群丰度和分布的因素有一个机械的理解。有了这样的理解，应该有可能产生能够预测物理和生物参数变化对这些种群动态的影响的理论。上述目标的一个关键组成部分是量化海洋生物各亚群之间的交换率或连通性。然而，我们对海洋种群通过幼虫扩散联系在一起的空间尺度只有初步的了解。这种知识的缺乏是全面了解海洋生物种群动态的根本障碍。此外，缺乏这样的信息将提供的空间背景下，限制了渔业科学家的能力，以评估设计和新的管理策略，如海洋保护区（MPAs）的潜在利益。最近的社区辩论确定海洋人口的连接作为一个关键问题，在生物海洋学：在什么样的空间尺度是海洋人口连接通过分散的早期生活阶段？报告指出，由于无法准确预测扩散情况，因此无法确定气候变化和/或人类开发对海洋生态系统的影响。因此，显然需要进行跨学科的努力来解决这一问题，因此需要为支持这一努力提供方案资金，考虑到这一问题的重要性和规模，以及显然需要采取跨学科的综合办法，将举办一次讲习班，以便：1）制定一个适当的科学行动计划，2）估计成功执行这一计划所需的资源。研讨会将吸引来自广泛的生物和物理海洋学界的科学家，根据需要，其他学科，特别是那些能够提供适用于解决这一问题的独特方法的学科，也有额外的代表。讲习班将使所有相关学科的科学家都能参与这一科学议程的规划，以确保采样战略和模型开发的空间和时间尺度的兼容性。

A central goal of marine ecology is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of the factors,, regulating the abundance and distribution of marine populations. With such an understanding, it should be possible to generate theory capable of predicting the effects of changes in physical and biological parameters on the dynamics of these populations. A critical component of the above goal is to quantify rates of exchange, or connectivity, among subpopulations of marine organisms. We have, however, little more than a rudimentary understanding of the spatial scales over which marine populations are connected by larval dispersal. This lack of knowledge represents a fundamental obstacle to any comprehensive understanding of the population dynamics of marine organisms. Furthermore, a lack of spatial context that such information would provide has limited the ability of fisheries scientists to evaluate the design and potential benefits of novel management strategies such as marine protected areas (MPAs).A recent community debate identified marine population connectivity as a key question in biological oceanography: Over what spatial scales are marine populations connected via dispersal of early fife stages? The report noted that the inability to accurately predict dispersal makes it impossible to determine the effect of climate change and/or human exploitation on marine ecosystems. Thus, there is a clear need for an interdisciplinary effort to address this issue and the consequential need for programmatic funding in support of this effort.Considering the significance and scale of this problem and the obvious need for an integrated, interdisciplinary approach, a workshop will be held to:1) Develop an appropriate Science Action Plan, and 2) Estimate resource needs to successfully execute this plan.The workshop will draw scientists from across the broad biological and physical oceanographic community, with additional representation, as needed, from other disciplines, especially those capable of providing unique methodologies applicable to the resolution of this problem. The workshop will enable scientists from all relevant disciplines to be involved in the planning of this scientific agenda to ensure compatibility of spatial and temporal scales in sampling strategies and model development.