not quite there .... yet!!

Right - so I've not quite managed to achieve the goal I had set for myself this week :o| Lots of unexpected tasks threw themselves at me this week, and I ended up 'having to' attend a number of seminars I only heard about at the last minute.
Somewhat frustrating - but on the upside, I am close to the end of the chapter, and I got to listen to some interesting people speak about their research.
The first speaker was Dr Ron Tanasichuk who spoke about the "Variation in euphausiid productivity along the West Coast of Vancouver Island and its implications for herring and salmon production"; in other words how variations in plankton production, an important little critter in the diet of many fishes, affects two important (ecologically and economically speaking) predators. Dr. Tanasichuk has been working with the pacific biological Station in Nanaimo since 1982 and as such has incredible first hand experience of the changes that this area has witnessed and a pretty unique data set stretching multiple years to document these changes.

The second speaker was Dr Alain Vezina, coordinator of the Ecosystem Modeling Group at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (Dartmouth, N.S.). His talk focused on numerical modeling of variability and change in marine ecosystems in Eastern Canada. Central to his presentation was a discussion about the differences in the physical and biological properties of ocean systems and how to then link those in a model that would then accurately reproduce changes in both physical and biological properties when the whole system undergoes a number of perturbations. It was particularly neat for me as elements of their research progression mirrored some of the evolution that Ecopath and Ecosim has undergone (the modeling software I am using for my research).

Last but not least, Dr Jane Lubchenco came to the Fisheries Centre to give a presentation on ocean and society and the role of climate change. She only accepts two talks a year, and as such I feel quite fortunate to have been able to attend her presentation - not only that, but I also got to have 20 min of her time, just for me!!! But first about Dr. Lubchenco - she is a distinguished Professor at Oregon State University and currently heads PISCO (Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans), an interdisciplinary team of scientists who study the marine ecosystem off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California. She is a former president of the International Council for Science, AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), the Ecological Society of America and was appointed by former president Bill Clinton to two terms on the National Science Board. She also founded or co-founded three organisations devoted to communicating science to policy makers and the public including the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program. Dr Lubchenco is considered as on of the most highly cited ecologists in the world and has been wildly recognised for her major contributions to science.
In other words she's achieved more than many of us can dream to achieve in two lifetimes!
Her talk was really interesting - the first part of it focused on the role (well mandate really) scientists have in informing society, and doing so properly. The second part of her talk detailed the disastrous events that she has been witnessing along the Oregon coast over the last 6 years: periods of low oxygen waters that result in massive kills of crab and other invertebrates. The pictures she showed from beaches as well as the sea floor were truly horrific, just littered with dead sea life. The first of these events occurred in 2002 with the most severe recorded in 2006. Analysis of oceanographic data for this area of the coast over the last 50 years have confirmed that prior to 2002 these events were indeed unprecedented. Dr Lubchenco further explained that these events are likely to be due to changing wind patterns which in turn affect the ocean conditions - typically the Oregon coast is characterised by periods of upwelling and downwelling, now they only observe periods of strong upwelling alternating with weeks of weak upwelling.

During my 20 minute meeting with her I had a chance to enquire about the outreach activities her research group has engaged in as a result of these events - as you can imagine the public has expressed serious concern and various groups have been keen to get detailed information as to what is happening. I suggested to her that she should write a sort of lessons learned paper of these interactions, detailing what activities have been particular useful/successful, so as to provide guidance as it were, to scientists when interacting with the press, as well as the public at large in such times of environmental crisis. I also got to briefly introduce her to my research, and ask her about the skills she'd recommend young scientists hone to make themselves more palatable!

Right -- well I better get on with that second chapter, it's getting late in the day
:o)