Testing approaches for early detection of marine ecosystem shifts
Speaker: Mary Hunsicker, Research Ecologist at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon.
Abstract: Ecological regime shifts are an important source of uncertainty that affect our ability to successfully manage marine resources. Over the past few years, the speaker and her colleagues have been testing approaches to improve the ability to anticipate marine ecosystem shifts as early as possible. They have been motivated to develop indices that enable scientists and managers to distinguish normal ecological variability from changes signaling a major shift. Such information could be used to adjust management strategies and mitigate impacts on managed fish stocks and other ecosystem components. During the seminar, Mary will present a compilation of their research efforts to develop indices that could 1) provide warning of an impending regime shift before it occurs, and 2) provide earliest possible detection of changes in community state. Our research focuses on northeast Pacific Ocean ecosystems, however the approaches used in their work are broadly applicable to other systems as well.
About the Speaker: Mary Hunsicker received her PhD from the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington. Soon after she started a postdoctoral position in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University working on identifying the influence of ocean conditions on species distributions in Alaska marine ecosystems. She then worked as a postdoc on the Ocean Tipping Points project at the University of California Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. Mary’s research efforts focus largely on understanding the effects of climate variability on species distributions, food web interactions, and community dynamics. Her interest in the work she is presenting during her seminar stems from the Ocean Tipping Points project.
