ASLO meeting Japan: Session on Ecosystem change and predictability

Together with Elisa Benincà from the University of Amsterdam and Chih-hao Hsieh from the National Taiwan University, we are putting together a special session on

ECOSYSTEM CHANGE AND PREDICTABILITY OF AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS,

in coming July during the ASLO Aquatic Sciences meeting in Japan. George Sugihara of Scripps Institution of Oceanography is going to kick start our session on a tutorial on nonlinear dynamics and the broad spectrum of the rest of the speakers will ensure an interesting and lively session!

Session Topic: Under global environmental pressure, the risk of unwanted changes in aquatic systems is high. Such changes occur across different scales and take a variety of forms depending on the properties of the ecosystem itself. For example, regime shifts may occur among multiple states, communities may change in composition and structure, ecosystem dynamics can shift from stable states to oscillatory regimes. As we still lack proper understanding of the mechanisms behind these phenomena, predicting system changes, anticipating their risk, and above all identifying their main drivers have a crucial role for the conservation and the management of aquatic ecosystems. This session will draw upon the expertise of empirical and theoretical aquatic ecologists to present methods, theories and evidence of understanding and anticipating changes in aquatic systems.