Conduct a workshop of SEBSCC principal investigators to
review status of the program and develop plans for the second research
cycle (1999-2001).
SEBSCC principal investigators, project managers, technical
advisors, and invited Bering Sea experts met for a two-day workshop on
December 15-16, 1997 at the Battelle Seattle Conference Center, Seattle,
Washington. The workshop featured status reports on 14 research components
within SEBSCC's scientific approaches of MODELING, MONITORING, RETROSPECTIVE
ANALYSIS, and PROCESS STUDIES. Time was allocated after each report for
questions and discussion by all attendees. Additionally, senior investigators,
project managers, and technical advisors were able to present their impressions
of the project, and there was discussion of Future Directions and Field
Operations.
Impressions of note were
diversity of research: this is indeed an ecosystem-wide project.
leverage: SEBSCC receives indirect support from NSF Inner
Front Project, Arctic Research Initiative, GLOBEC N. Pacific, and Faculty
of Fisheries, Hokkaido University, Japan.
setting: The Bering Sea has presented researchers with some
challenging questions about how and why the ecosystem is changing.
cooperation and synthesis: Form three working groups to integrate
findings.
future objectives: Determine how primary and secondary productivity
affect food availability for higher trophic levels; determine how overlap
and availability of juvenile pollock to predators affects their survival;
determine how changes in the physical environment affect food webs.
Convene a meeting of SEBSCC project managers and technical
advisors to discuss project redirection in preparation for the second research
phase (1999-2001)
Project managers and technical advisors met in a closed
session on December 16 to discuss tuning SEBSCC to take best advantage
of the second research cycle. Suggestions included eliminating the scientific
approach called RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS and creating a new one called SYNTHESIS.
Another redirective was that SEBSCC seek to supply information needed by
modelers of upper-trophic levels and juvenile pollock survival.
