February 20-24, 2012 - Sgmeet.com

Program Book
Dr. Kelly Benoit-Bird
Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon
Causes and Consequences of Heterogeneity of Organisms
in the Ocean: From Phytoplankton to Dolphins
Presentation: In the ocean, most resources are heterogeneously
distributed and highly dynamic. This patchiness in time and space has
significant consequences for population dynamics, trophic interactions,
community organization and stability, the cycling of elements, and our
ability to measure these processes and manage marine ecosystems. Using
a combination of acoustical, optical, and other oceanographic techniques,
work on the food chain involving phytoplankton, copepods, mesopelagic
micronekton, and spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris) has shown
that both physical and biological processes can play a role in forming
patches in this system. At all trophic levels, patches in this food chain
have ecological consequences that are greater than their biomass alone
would predict; patchiness regulates the structure of the food web as well
as the animals’ behavior. The importance of spatial pattern in ecosystems
has long been recognized and its effects on predator-prey pairs has been
examined in a number of previous studies, however, we now know that
patchiness can be a dominant force regulating an entire system.
Biography: Dr. Kelly Benoit-Bird, an Associate Professor in the College
of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University, is
the author or co-author of more than 35 journal publications applying
acoustics to study the ecology of pelagic ocean ecosystems. Her
work examines a wide range of animals including zooplankton, fish,
squid, and marine mammals, in all cases emphasizing the mechanisms
creating spatial and temporal dynamics in pelagic marine ecosystems,
the effects these dynamics have on interactions between organisms,
and the mechanisms animals use to cope with these patterns. She has
been involved in the development of several new optical and acoustical
instruments and has made fundamental acoustical measurements
of a variety of species in the process of addressing ecological processes
in the ocean. In 2010, Kelly was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship,
commonly referred as a “genius award” for her “exceptional creativity
and promise for important future advances based on a track record of
significant accomplishment”. Her work has also been recognized by the
Acoustical Society of America with the 2009 R. Bruce Lindsay Award
for “contributions to marine ecological acoustics” and the American
Geophysical Union which awarded her the 2008 Ocean Sciences Early
Career Award for “innovative application of acoustical techniques”.
Kelly is also the recipient of a United States Presidential Early Career
Award for Scientists and Engineers, a Young Investigator Award from
the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and a U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Kavli Frontiers Fellowship.
Dr. Demian Chapman
Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York
Biology in a Bowl: Studying Sharks to Save Them from
Becoming Shark Fin Soup
Presentation: Each year tens of millions of sharks are killed and their fins
are exported to Asia, where they are used to make the luxury dish shark
fin soup. Fetching up to US $100 per bowl, this soup is the caviar of Asia
and fuels an international trade that is vast, lucrative and deeply secretive.
Many sharks take a decade or more to mature and have a few pups per
5
TOS/AGU/ASLO
litter, which explains why these top predators are now disappearing from
oceans all around the world as a result of this trade. I will detail how basic
research into the biology, morphology and genetics of sharks is now
being adapted to help save these animals. Studies of the evolutionary relationships
between sharks and the morphology of their fins are providing
critical data that can be used to answer the question: what species does
the shark fin or the soup come from? This is a central question for law
enforcement as some of the more vulnerable species become protected
(e.g., the great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias). Methods to trace
fins from the Asian markets or soup bowls back to the shark’s birthplace
are also needed to establish stock specific catch limits. I will show how
the development of the world’s first shark family tree from field studies
in the Bahamas has revealed that females return to breed in their own
birthplace. I will discuss how this remarkable behavior eventually generates
a site-specific mitochondrial “DNA Zipcode” that we can map and
use to determine where shark fins are coming from. As science advances
our ability to monitor the fin trade, the burden is now beginning to shift
to policy-makers to see that these advances are employed to reverse
declines in these threatened marine predators.
Biography: Dr. Demian Chapman is a shark scientist with the Institute
for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University. His
research includes development of genetic testing for tissue identification
from the great white shark. This led to a successful proposal to
list the great white species on the Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species (CITES). He is the author or co-author of
numerous journal publications regarding a variety of sharks and their
relatives. Dr. Chapman received his doctorate from Nova Southeastern
University in 2007.
Dr. Mick Follows
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Modeling Marine Microbes: From Molecules to Ecosystems
Presentation: Communities of marine micro-organisms are diverse,
ecologically complex and live in a turbulent fluid environment. They
modulate the global cycles of elements, including climatically significant
carbon and sulfur, and form a critical part of the food web
regulating marine resources. How are marine microbial communities
structured and organized in space and time? What is their role in biogeochemical
cycles? How do they respond to environmental changes?
Mathematical and numerical models provide avenues for synthesizing
empirical understanding and exploring the interactions of complex and
complicated systems. We will discuss, through specific examples, how
ecological and biogeochemical models are being used to address these
fundamental questions.
The phenomena significant in organizing microbial communities span
scales from sub-cellular metabolic networks, which mediate resource
and energy trade-offs for individuals, to global circulation patterns,
which regulate resource supply. Accordingly, relevant empirical constraints
are provided by a wide variety of laboratory and field measurements,
increasingly based on molecular techniques. To interpret these
data and provide a cross-scale synthesis, models of marine microbial
systems are bringing together eclectic tools from geophysical fluid
dynamics, cell biology, theoretical ecology, and marine chemistry. We
will illustrate how “self-organizing”, trait-based models can capture,