The CBIOMES Workshop on Transects and Eco-provinces was held on January 23-25, 2023, at MIT’s Samberg Conference Center.
by Helen Hill for CBIOMES
Researchers within the CBIOMES community have substantial expertise in thinking about the spatial structuring of ocean data and how spatial correlations between datasets can be used to build and test theories for phytoplankton populations and their growth. Last month, twenty-five participants gathered at MIT to think about linking transect observations with ideas for defining spatial provinces.
The three-day meeting, organized by Paul Mattern (UCSC), Francois Ribalet (UW), Chris Follett (U. Liverpool, UK) and Jacob Bien (USC) paired plenary talks with hands-on group work looking at ecological provinces through the lens of high-resolution transect data and new observational data.
Day one saw presentations from Chris Follett (reviewing prior work by the CBIOMES Provinces Working Group), Christian Müller (sharing different statistical approaches for defining ecological provinces), Francois Ribalet (introducing the SeaFlow, IFCB data), then Yubin Raut (16/18S), Bror Jönsson (satellite) and Stephanie Dutkiewicz (Darwin). Attendees then gave lightning talks – 5 min presentations sharing ideas they were each bringing to the workshop. The day finished with short introductions to each of three clinic topics.
Days two and three were then devoted to answering the questions posed for each clinic topic.
Clinic 1: Defining New Provinces Based on Data Along a Transect (led by Chris Follett) Use environmental variables, community structure (SeaFlow, IFCB) and 16 and 18S to define new ecological provinces. Investigate challenges and uncertainties in the province definitions.
Clinic 2: How Well Do Province Definitions Explain the Observed Variability in Data Along a Transect? (led by François Ribalet) Using existing province definitions (e.g. Longhurst), does the data support the province boundaries. Is there a province definition that works better than others?
and Clinic 3: Where Am I? Predicting Longhurst Province Based on In-Situ Measurements Along a Transect (led by Paul Mattern) Based on high-resolution measurements from a segment of a transect, can we predict the province these measurements belong to?
Special thanks to all our plenary speakers, workshop organizers, Jacob Bien (USC), Stephanie Dutkiewicz (MIT), Chris Follet (U. Liverpool, UK), Bror Jönsson (PML), Christian Müller (Helmholtz Zentrum München, LMU München, Germany), Yubin Raut (USC), François Ribalet (UW), data-wrangler extraordinaire Paul Mattern (UCSC) and, of course, to the generosity of the Simons Foundation for underwriting this activity.
Story Image: Attendees of the CBIOMES Workshop on Transects and Eco-provinces, MIT, Cambridge, January 2023 – image credit: H. Hill