Tuesday 18th January 2022
Session 1: Aquatic Resource Use and Protection (Programme Area 1)
Session 2: Adaptive place-based research during the COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives and praxis
Session 3: Coastal Development and Hinterland Dynamics (Programme Area 3)
Session 4: Sustainable Aquatic Food Systems
Session 5: Fieldwork at home? Experiments at MAREE during Corona and beyond
Session 6: Models within ZMT – ZMT within models
Session 7: Effects of human activities on coral reef organisms and ecosystems
Session 8: A fish perspective on the marine tropics
Session 9: Open session
Grand Debates at ZMT: The Anthropocene
ZAC3 organisation team: Connie Kwong, Achim Meyer, Hauke Kegler and Nils Moosdorf
Session 1:
Aquatic Resource Use and Protection (PA 1)
Chairs: Achim Schlüter (Institutional and Behavioural Economics) and Oscar Puebla (Fish Ecology and Evolution)
Currently great emphasis is put on using more intensively and in new ways the potential of the sea (e.g. bioeconomy, blue economy, blue growth) for the benefit of human kind. This process will unavoidably lead to many social and ecological sustainability challenges that have to be understood scientifically. The programme area “Aquatic resource use and protection” contributes to the scientific basis for a sustainable use of aquatic organisms for food and other purposes. It adds to the development of eco-friendly culturing methods and to the sustainable ecosystem-based and poverty-oriented forms of management and governance of coastal resources.
Any contribution within ZMT that contributes to programme area 1 is very welcome. Within the session we will first discuss the papers individually for then going into a discussion about connections between these works, but also in general within the PA.
Session 2:
Adaptive place-based research during the COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives and praxis
Chairs: Yim Ming Connie Kwong (Deliberation, Valuation & Sustainability) and Ben Nagel (Institutional and Behavioural Economics)
While place-based research has often been affected by disruptive events, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges and drawn significant attention to how such research can be conducted. Due to travel restrictions and social distancing, place-based methods ranging from stakeholder engagement to ecological surveys have become less feasible. Simultaneously, there have been more opportunities for innovations as well as co-production with local collaborators and communities.
The presentations in this session draw from a range of disciplinary, contextual, and theoretical backgrounds to share perspectives and creative ways that our place-based research is adapting to the pandemic. These could include remote alternatives and socially distanced methods to gather data and samples, or engage study participants, empowerment of local actors (e.g., citizen science), strategic collaboration and partnerships with local researchers and practice partners, and other approaches, methods and tools to adapt research designs to the uncertain nature of the current global reality. Presentations can also reflect on and discuss ethical concerns of such adaptations. We welcome perspectives from both the natural and social sciences on the challenges and opportunities that contributors have faced either in adapting existing research projects, or developing new projects, to the pandemic.
Session 3:
Coastal Development and Hinterland Dynamics (PA3)
Chairs: Tim Jennerjahn (Ecological Biogeochemistry) and Marion Glaser (Social-Ecological Systems Analysis)
In Programme Area 3 we address the causes and consequences of human interventions in the coastal zone and its hinterland on matter fluxes, eutrophication, pollution, habitat and ecosystem distribution, diversity and wellbeing of organisms and people, ecosystem services, socioeconomic conditions and governance (for details: here).
An intensive exchange of what we have so far and what may define the way forward will help to further sharpen PA3 and the PAs as such, as well as the overall ZMT profile.
We ask for contributions that are relevant to PA3. These may be reports on ongoing research, plans for research projects, recent own publications and ideas for PA3-relevant synergy activities at ZMT.
Session 4:
Sustainable Aquatic Food Systems
Chairs: Aisa O. Manlosa (Institutional and Behavioural Economics), Stefan Partelow (Institutional and Behavioural Economics), and Holger Kühnhold (Experimental Aquaculture)
Coastal and marine ecosystems support global food security and nutrition through the production of aquatic food. Aquatic food production, whether from capture fisheries or aquaculture, has been faced with challenges related to unsustainability. This challenge has motivated numerous researches that look for ways to make the production of aquatic food sustainable. This session is intended to foster a discussion about sustainable aquatic food systems. Contributions from all work groups are welcome. The primary questions for this session are How do we understand sustainable aquatic food systems? What types of knowledge, technologies, and concrete actions are needed to transform towards sustainable aquatic food systems? What social, technological, and ecological solutions are we working on at ZMT to promote transition towards sustainable aquatic food systems? What threats to sustainable food systems are we researching and what are we finding out about these threats so far? These are questions that require perspectives from different working groups at ZMT including from those working on species, ecosystems, modelling, and people. In this session, we use “aquatic food” as an organizing concept. We will then explore this concept in a panel discussion after the presentations.
Session 5:
Fieldwork at home? Experiments at MAREE during Corona and beyond
Chairs: Silvia Hardenberg (MAREE/Infrastructure) and Lara Stuthmann (Experimental Aquaculture)
The Marine Experimental Ecology (MAREE) at ZMT provides the opportunity to rear and experiment with tropical species ranging from single celled foraminifera over various invertebrates and algae to different tropical fish right in the middle of rather non-tropical northern Germany. Various aquaria systems can facilitate different experimental set-ups in order to re-build a controlled version of the tropical systems we are studying. Experimental set-ups in the laboratory can always be an essential part of ecological, geochemical or even social-ecological studies. However, the recent COVID-19 pandemic limited the possibilities to conduct fieldwork or has made it completely impossible. Therefore, some scientists were forced to adapt their plans and the opportunity to conduct research at MAREE was even more important (but potentially also more challenging) than under usual conditions.
This session aims to highlight the diversity of studies conducted at the MAREE facilities and invites scientists to present their projects and experiments – be it planned to take place at MAREE all along or adapted due to the pandemic – as well as to discuss potential challenges and ways to overcome them when planning and conducting the work.
Session 6:
“Models within ZMT – ZMT within models”
Chairs: Jan Härter (Complexity and Climate) and Debbie To (Systems Ecology)
Tropical socio-economic, biogeochemical, ecological and geophysical systems are driven by a variety of complex interactions, which often require complex systems, that is, reductionist, modeling approaches. We invite simplified dynamical, computational, statistical and ecosystem-based approaches that aim to incorporate interactions relevant to the tropics. What are the methodological tools used in such models? In this session we encourage presentations describing how general modelling approaches have been applied in particular projects to describe different systems of interest, with an aim to foster a deeper discussion on the basic ideas behind them, their similarities and differences.
Field work and models are crucial aspects in a variety of ZMT projects, providing great potential for building synergies between disciplines with interdisciplinary approaches. However, this is often not easily exploited. We invite scientists from both modelling and fieldwork related projects to discuss how models can assist in planning field works or improving stakeholder participation; and how field data can facilitate the development or optimization of models – thus bridging the gaps of empirical and theoretical approaches.
Session 7:
Effects of human activities on coral reef organisms and ecosystems
Chairs: Marleen Stuhr (Geoecology & Carbonate Sedimentology) and Henry Wu (Coral Climatology)
The effects of human activities on tropical coastal ecosystems such as terrestrial and nutrient inflow, pollution, thermal or acidification stresses affect coral reefs from the scale of organismal responses to ecological processes and ecosystem functions. As coral reefs are essential for carbonate and sediment production, food security, and sustainable livelihoods of local communities, it is critical to understand the consequences of environmental change from the cellular to local and global scales. In this session, we invite all research focusing on the understanding of coral reef organisms, its responses to past, present and future anthropogenic changes, reef ecology and biodiversity, conservation and management practices as well as societal and economic implications of human impacts on coral reefs, and more.
Session 8:
A fish perspective on the marine tropics
Chairs: Oscar Puebla (Fish Ecology and Evolution) and Sonia Bejarano (Reef Systems)
Tropical fishes are highly diverse at all levels and more studied than any other marine group. They include species of economic importance and are at the forefront of local and global human impacts on the marine environment. In this session we will focus on tropical fishes specifically, be it their diversity, ecology, evolution, conservation, management, economic or social importance.
Session 9:
Open session
Chairs: Yim Ming Connie Kwong (Deliberation, Valuation & Sustainability) and Hauke Kegler (Spatial Ecology and Interactions)
The ZMT is a diverse research institute and not always does all work fit into pre-set categories. This session invites contributions from everyone to any topic they feel is relevant in the context of ZAC3 but difficult to fit into the above topics.
Grand Debates at ZMT: The Anthropocene
Chair: Nils Moosdorf (Submarine Groundwater Discharge)
The Anthropocene is discussed among different scientific disciplines and in the general public. The definitions and concepts of “Anthropocene” vary strongly between them. Here we will shed light on the different disciplinary views and search for common perceptions.
Four invited impulse talks (from Social Science, Ecology, Geology and Theoretical Ecology and Modelling) followed by a discussion.
Oscar Puebla is a fisheries biologist and research group leader at ZMT.
Impulse talk title: TBD
Giovanni Romagnoni is an ecologist turned fisheries scientist. He uses models to understand how climate and fisheries impact marine species and ecosystems, and how we can harvest marine ecosystems in a sustainable and equitable way.
Impulse talk title: A useful concept or a dangerous buzzword? Ecological modelling and societal changes facing the Anthropocene.
Marion Glaser joined ZMT as its first social scientist, 5 years after foundation. She published the book “Human-Nature Interactions in the Anthropocene – Potentials of Social-Ecological Systems Analysis” (Routledge 2012) at a time when the term Anthropocene raised but gained a weak smile from most scientists.
Impulse talk title: The Anthropocene: Uses, abuses and potentials of the concept
Henry Wu is a Junior Research Group Leader specializing in the reconstruction of past climate and environmental change from natural archives through geochemical techniques.
Impulse talk title: The Anthropocene started thousands of years ago