Workshop: Sustaining Barrier Island Ecosystems in a Changing Global Environment, to be held, Biloxi, MS on April 13-15, 2006.

屏障岛是独特的岛屿生态系统，与沿海海岸线接壤，将近海海洋区与近海声音和河口分开。 顾名思义，它们提供了一个物理屏障，保护大陆海岸线免受来自离岸的强大波浪作用，这些波浪发生在世界沿着所有主要大陆。 重要的是，这些生态系统有大量高度适应性的地方特有物种和土著物种，它们在从陆地到海洋的生态过渡带内独特的压力环境中生存。 屏障岛相对独特的生理化学特征也创造了多样的时空环境，支持植物物种的多样性，这些植物物种可能在其适应模式中高度专业化。 然而，这些相同的社区往往出现有限的物种丰富度，最有可能是由于这种非生物制度的压力性质。 此外，这些岛屿的生态系统可能特别容易受到全球变化的影响，包括海平面上升和飓风等严重海洋风暴的强度和持续时间将随着全球变暖而增加的预测。 可能很少有生态系统如此生动地展示了生态系统稳定性、偶发性极端干扰和全球变化效应之间的紧密耦合。 这一拟议讲习班的目标是从广泛的专门知识出发，审议屏障岛屿生态系统在当前全球变化情景（更频繁和更强烈的风暴）下的可持续性，包括增加人为干扰的可能性。 屏障岛屿未来可持续性问题的解决方案可以作为一个模型系统，生物学，地质学，经济学和遥感可以有效地整合，以维持健康的生态系统。

Barrier islands are unique island ecosystems that border coastal shorelines and separate the offshore oceanic province with the inshore sounds and estuaries. As their name implies, they provide a physical barrier that protects continental shorelines from often powerful wave action originating offshore, occurring along all major continents worldwide. Importantly, these ecosystems have an abundance of highly adapted endemic and indigenous species that survive in a uniquely stressful environment within the ecotonal transition from land to sea. The relatively unique physiochemical features of barrier islands also create a diverse spatial and temporal environment, supporting a diversity of plant species that may be highly specialized in their adaptive modes. However, these same communities often appear limited in species richness, due most likely to the stressful nature of this abiotic regime. In addition, these island ecosystems may be particularly vulnerable to global change impacts, including sea level rise and the prediction that the intensity and duration of severe oceanic storms such as hurricanes will increase with continued global warming. There may be few ecosystems that demonstrate so vividly the tight coupling between ecosystem stability, episodic extreme disturbances, and global change effects. The objective of this proposed workshop will be to consider, from a broad spectrum of expertise, the sustainability of barrier island ecosystems under current global change scenarios (more frequent and intense storms), including the likelihood of increasing anthropogenic disturbance. Solution of this future sustainability question for barrier islands could serve as a model system whereby biology, geology, economics, and remote sensing can be effectively integrated for the purpose of sustaining healthy ecosystems .