Theme Sessions

The 2011 LFC will have several theme sessions, designed to include a combination of invited and contributed papers on topics of broad interest. Each of the sessions is open to contributions by any author whose paper is aligned with the respective themes. If you would like to have your paper considered for inclusion in a theme session, you will be able to indicate a specific theme session during the abstract submission process. Alternatively, there will be a session for general contributed papers.

f anyone has a specific idea for a theme session that they would like to organize, please contact either Jeff (jeffrey_buckel@ncsu.edu), Tom (lankfordt@uncw.edu), or Fred (scharff@uncw.edu) to discuss it further.


Environmental and climatic influences on predator-prey interactions

Organized by Tom Hurst, NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center (Thomas.Hurst@noaa.gov)

Description: The interactions between predators and prey can be strongly mediated by aspects of the environment in which they occur. The impacts of climate change on aquatic ecosystems and fisheries will be expressed through alterations in food web dynamics. As such, predator-prey interactions can be considered both the response of an ecosystem to environmental forcing as well as the mechanism by which the responses of individual species to environmental variation shape ecosystem dynamics. This session will include presentations that describe how environmental factors regulate the predator-prey interactions of fishes with an eye toward predicting the functioning of ecosystems under future climate conditions.

Potential aspects of the predator-prey systems for consideration are (but are not limited to): fish behavior; prey quality and availability; distributional shifts; and recruitment responses. Potential aspects of the environment that may impact predator-prey interactions are (but are not limited to): thermal regime; seasonal phenology; flow fields and stratification; hypoxia and acidification; and structural components. We welcome studies adopting a variety of approaches including laboratory experiments, field observations, and modeling.


Cephalopod early life history

Organized by Michelle Staudinger, University of North Carolina Wilmington (staudingerm@uncw.edu)

Description: The increased demands of global fisheries on cephalopods requires an firm understanding of their ecological role in marine ecosystems, relationships with other fishery resources, and knowledge of the underlying environmental factors affecting growth, distribution, and survival. This theme session is open to all areas of cephalopod early life history however, topics encompassing the ecology of early life stages, spatial and temporal distributions of paralarvae in the environment, factors affecting recruitment variation, impacts of climate change and ocean acidification, use of new techniques for identifying paralarvae, and supporting age and growth studies are especially encouraged. Contributions from field, laboratory, and modeling approaches are welcome.


Understanding reproductive dynamics of marine fishes to inform fishery management

Co-organized by Rich McBride, NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center
(richard.mcbride@noaa.gov) and Todd Kellison, NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center (todd.kellison@noaa.gov)

Description: The reproductive dynamics of many marine fishes can be highly complex. Specific to informing the management process, comprehensive study of fish reproductive biology can enable: 1) maturity classification to separate fish stocks into sexually immature and mature components, 2) estimation of fecundity to refine stock-recruitment relationships and serve as indices of spawning stock biomass, and 3) identification of reproductive disruptions or failure to spawn regularly (e.g., skip spawning). This session will highlight recent developments in the contribution of fish reproductive biology to understanding stock productivity and toward meeting recent needs for timely assessments of stock status.


The evolution of essential fish habitat: has our view of nursery habitat changed?

Organized by John Manderson, NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center (john.manderson@noaa.gov)

Description: It’s been 15 years since passage of the Sustainable Fisheries Act that required essential fish habitats to be described and identified for protection, and 10 years since a seminal publication by Beck et al. that challenged the application of some widely used metrics to define nursery habitats. Recent exchanges in the primary literature have highlighted the fact that this issue remains contentious and that we may be no closer to achieving consensus on the definition of nursery habitat than we were in 1996. This session will aim to bring together researchers that have made important contributions in this arena during the past decade to determine how views of nursery habitat have changed.