Scott Ling

The 7th International Temperate Reefs Symposium
University of California, Santa Barbara, June 26 to July 1, 2006

The UTAS-CSIRO Joint PhD Program in Quantitative Marine Science kindly provided funding for me to attend the 7th International Temperate Reefs Symposium (ITRS) at the University of California Santa Barbara . This was an exciting opportunity because I had never before presented at an international conference. The ITRS is an approximately bi-annual symposium that brings together scientists from across the world involved in the practical and theoretical study of temperate reef ecosystems. Temperate reef ecosystems attract specialist study but also provide a useful model system for marine ecosystems in general and also allow tests of broader ecological concepts.

The ITRS 2006 contained 6 specialist symposia carried out over 6 days, 1. Loss of biodiversity and the functioning of temperate coastal ecosystems; 2. Ecological processes causing and maintaining small scale spatial and temporal variability in marine populations; 3. The use of general long-term monitoring data for assessment of specific impacts; 4. The ecology of temperate reefs: What have we learned? What should we learn? During each symposium, invited experts presented a 30 minute overview of multifaceted research programs spanning multiple years and many scientists. An hour long student led discussion on each symposium then followed. This provided opportunity for an in depth question time and clarification period. These sessions were extremely informative and encouraged involvement from experts to those less familiar with broader conceptual debates. A series of more specialised sessions (3 concurrent sessions) ran during the afternoons and involved shorter presentations (20 minute time slot) on more specialised research topics.

The overriding theme consistent across all of the presentations I attended was that of coastal marine ecology, i.e. research into ecological patterns and processes operating in coastal marine environments. The conference could quite easily have been called the coastal marine ecology symposium. For me the most exciting thing to come out of this conference was the strong trend of movement away from traditional ‘within discipline' research toward a integration of disciplines to tackle ‘bigger picture' questions in the marine environment. I believe that the North American organisation known as the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), is leading the way in terms of cross-disciplinary research. In attending presentations and reading several high impact papers to come out of PISCO, it became abundantly clear that great advancements can be made by involving scientists from many disciplines (oceanography, benthic ecology, physiology) to synthesise new understanding, concepts and management solutions for the marine environment.

I gave my presentation during the ‘trophic interactions' session, or more simply, temperate reef food webs. Traditionally this is where work examining predatory control of marine communities sits and this was reflected by presentations documenting ‘trophic cascades' whereby heavy harvest of reef predators releases sea urchins to overgraze seaweed habitat and create an undesirable but stable alternative state known as sea urchin barrens. Presentations supporting this ‘paradigm' of strong ‘top-down' control of temperate rocky reefs came from California , NZ, Australia , South Africa , Canary Is., and Mexico . My presentation was entitled “Climate change, overfishing and recent phase shift in a temperate reef ecosystem”. The overfishing part of my title suggested that my presentation belonged squarely in this trophic interactions session. However, there were subtle but very important differences between my presentation and all others in this session in that I was not explicitly testing the paradigm of ‘top-down' or the contrary ‘bottom up' control of rocky reef communities but rather proposing a new model for rocky reefs based on the concept of resilience. To summarise, evidence collected during my PhD indicated that heavily fished reefs (i.e. low predator abundance) conferred low resilience against climate driven increases in sea urchin abundance, thus risk of barrens formation was high. Alternatively, reef systems that had an abundance of predators conferred high resilience against climate driven increases in sea urchin abundance, thus risk of barrens formation was lower in this situation.

I think owing to the topical issues of both overfishing and climate change, attendance to my presentation was high. My presentation ran for 15 minutes and I allowed 5 minutes for questions. I received a great deal of positive feedback both during question time and in subsequent discussions. However, I did encounter heated discussion as some scientists were not sure where my work fitted in terms of long-held paradigms in marine ecology. I had discussions with researchers from North America, South Africa , Italy , Canary Is., New Zealand and Australia . In the days following my presentation I made many contacts and enjoyed social interactions during the conference functions. Since the completion of the conference I have been in email contact with 10 people that I am keen to establish ongoing dialogue. In summary, it was a great experience to attend and present at the ITRS. I felt part of the broader science community and it was a great forum to exchange thoughts and ideas. I will be doing my best to make the next meeting in Adelaide in 2008!

Authorised by the Executive Director, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies
February 8, 2011