2018 Ocean Global Change Biology GRC/GRS

Gordon Research Conferences, East Greenwich RI

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides funding to support the third and upcoming conference, the 2018 GRC on Ocean Global Change Biology to be held at the Waterville Valley Conference Center in Waterville Valley, NH on July 15-20, 2018. The study of global change biology in the oceans has emerged as a major area of focus for marine sciences. This area of research is multidisciplinary, encompassing biological, chemical and physical oceanography, along with marine ecology and evolutionary biology. This research community has previously been challenged in meeting to share data and advances made in this rapidly developing field of study. However, the inaugural Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Ocean Global Change Biology in July 2014, followed by a successful meeting in 2016, created an unprecedented opportunity for the U.S. science community to discuss and share cutting edge results in the retreat-like atmosphere of a Gordon Conference. Both meetings were very successful, with excellent attendance, particularly from early career scientists. This award for the 2018 GRC on Ocean Global Change Biology will support U.S. researchers in attending a meeting where ideas can be exchanged and research directions can be improved and advanced. These meetings are highly attended by scientists from other countries, thus creating an opportunity for U.S. marine scientists to develop international collaborations in this globally important area in biological oceanography. During the GRC itself and in the Gordon Research Seminar preceding it, the proposed project will support interdisciplinary training for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. The seminar activities will advance the science communication skills and insights of the U.S. scientists during the 5-day meeting. This meeting will facilitate the sharing of new results, often times unpublished material, from investigators in Ocean Global Change Biology. Previous conferences served to highlight exciting new areas of research in the field and the third GRC on Ocean Global Change Biology will build upon these important emerging directions in 9 themes that comprise the actual 5-day conference. These include the need to focus on adaptation and evolutionary rescue as a possible response to climate change and multistressors, the use of genomics tools and next generation sequencing to facilitate the study of evolutionary response and gene expression patterns, a session on epigenetics in a global change context, the need to examine species interactions in the context of environmental change, to continue to explore the interaction of physical factors such as OA, temperature and deoxygenation of coastal waters, and finally to also examine ecosystem-level and bioenergetics consequences, where possible. In designing the new themes, the Chair (Dr. Gretchen Hofmann) and Vice Chair (Dr. Sinead Collins) have attempted to take into consideration a venue that will focus on these identified areas, and to also report on progress in this rapidly advancing field of ocean global change biology. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.