Programme
Scientific programme:
The scientific programme and the abstract book can be downloaded as pdf.
Day | Time | Event | Venue | Informations |
Saturday, 20.03.2010 |
09:00 | Workshops: |
GOM |
Reg: 08:30 |
14:30 | Workshops: |
GOM | ||
09:30 09:00 | Workshops: |
Ozeaneum |
Reg: 09:00 Reg: 08:30 | |
Sunday, 21.03.2010 |
09:00 | Workshops: | |
Reg: 08:30 |
14:00 14:00 | Workshops: |
GOM |
Reg: 13:30 Reg: 13:30 | |
09:00 09:30 09:00 | Workshops: |
GOM Ozeaneum |
Reg: 08:30 Reg: 08:30 Reg: 08:30 | |
16:30 - 20:00 | On-site registration | GOM | ||
19:00 - 22:30 | GOM | |||
Monday, 22.03.2010 | 08:00 - 19:00 | Main conference | Old Brewery | On-site registration possible |
20:00 - 22:00 | Ozeaneum | Giants of the Seas | ||
Tuesday, 23.03.2010 | 08:00 - 19:00 | Main conference | Old Brewery | |
20:00 | Theatre | |||
Wednesday, 24.03.2010 | 08:00 -19:00 | Main conference | Old Brewery | |
20:00 - 01:00 | Ozeaneum | Dancing under the Giants of the Seas | ||
Thursday, 25.03.2010 | 10:00 - 17:00 | departure: Ozeaneum | Bus tour to the Jasmund National Park |
- dusky dolphin (photo: B. Würsig)
Workshops:
Following workshops will take place on Saturday, 20th March and Sunday, 21st March 2010. Please register for the workshops at the contact given for the specific workshop. A short description of the workshops is given below.
Saturday, 20th March 2010
Morning:
Organizers: Peter Evans*, Marije Siemensma*, Stefan Bräger*
*on behalf of ECS/ASCOBANS
Contact: peter.evans(at)bangor.ac.uk
Venue: GOM Forum 09:00 - 13:30; Registration: 08:30
II. Vision in marine mammals
Organizers: Frederike D. Hanke*, Guido Dehnhardt*
*Marine Science Center, University of Rostock (Germany)
Contact: frederike.hanke(at)uni-rostock.de
Workshop cancelled!
Afternoon:
III. Best Practices in Marine Mammal Research
Organizer: ECS Science Advisory Committee
Contact: michel.andre(at)upc.edu
Workshop cancelled!
Ib. Cetacean Bycatch: effectiveness of current mitigation measures and possible improvements in the future
Closed meeting
Venue: GOM Forum 14:30 - 17:30
Full day:
IV. C-POD workshop
Organizer: Nick Tregenza*
*Chelonia Ltd. (United Kingdom)
Contact: nick(at)chelonia.demon.co.uk
Venue: Ozeaneum Mehrzwecksaal 09:30 - 17:00; Registration: 09:00
V. Marine Mammal Morphology
Organizers: Stefan Huggenberger*, Helmut Oelschläger**
*University of Cologne (Germany),**University of Frankfurt (Germany)
Contact: cetaceans(at)live.de
Venue: Ozeaneum Seminarraum 09:00- 18:30; Registration: 08:30
Sunday, 21st March 2010
Morning:
VIa. SAMBAH – Static Acoustic Monitoring of the Baltic Sea Harbour Porpoise
Closed meeting
Venue: GOM Forum 09:00 - 12:30; Registration: 08:30
Afternoon:
VIb. SAMBAH – Static Acoustic Monitoring of the Baltic Sea Harbour Porpoise
Organizers: Mats Amundin*, Ida Carlén**, Julia Carlström**
*Kolmarden Wildlife Park (Sweden), **AquaBiota Water Research (Sweden)
Contact: julia.carlstrom(at)aquabiota.se
Venue: GOM Forum 14:00 - 18:00; Registration: 13:30
VII. Fixed Transect surveys for cetaceans on ferries and other reasearch platforms - best practise and collaboration on research and policy applications
Organizers: Antonella Arcangeli*, Tom Brereton**, Colin D. MacLeod**
*Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA)
**Atlantic Research Coalition (ARC)
Contact: ecs_ferrysurveysws(at)yahoo.com
Venue: Ozeaneum Kursraum 14:00 - 18:00; Registration: 13:30
Full day:
VIII. GIS Student workshop
Organizers: Polona Kotniek*,**, Tilen Genov**
*ECS-student representative; **Morigenos (Slovenia)
Contact: polona.kotnjek(at)gmail.com , www.morigenos.org
Venue: GOM Vortragsraum 09:00 - 17:00; Registration: 08:30
IX. Pile driving in offshore windfarms: effects on harbour porpoises, mitigation measures and standards
Organizers: Kristin Blasche*, Maria Boethling*, Christian Dahlke*
* Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) (Germany)
For registering please fill out the registration form and send it to:
Venue: Ozeaneum Mehrzwecksaal 09:30 - 17:00; Registration and Posters: 08:30
X. White-beaked and White-sided Dolphins: Two North Atlantic Species in Their Environment
Organizers: Carl Kinze,* Anders Galatius**, Marianne Rasmussen***, Peter Evans****
*(Denmark),**Institute of Biology, University of Copenhagen (Denmark), ***University of Iceland (Iceland), ****Sea Watch Foundation (United Kingdom)
Contact: mhr(at)hi.is
Venue: Ozeaneum Seminarraum 09:00 - 18:00; Registration: 08:30
Social events:
- Icebreaker
The Icebreaker will take place in the evening of the 21st March in the halls of the German Oceanographic Museum (GOM).
19:00 - 22:30 - Public talk
The public talk (in German) will take place on the 22nd March.
"Wale von der Ostsee bis zur Antarktis - faszinierende Lebewesen in einer sich schnell wandelnden Welt"
Thomas Henningsen
Venue: OZEANEUM - Giants of the Seas
20:00 - 22:00 - Video night
The video night will take place on the 23rd March in the theatre of stralsund, Olof-Palme-Platz 6, 18439 Stralsund.
20:00 - 22:00 - Dinner & Dance
Dinner & Dance will take place in the evening of the 24th March in the halls of the OZEANEUM under the Giants of the Seas.
20:00 - 01:00 - Excursion
The excursion on March 25th is getting more and more planned and will not be a real surprise excursion anymore. The ice is still too thick for an excursion to the island of Hiddensee and the cabrio ship is unfortunately not an ice breaker. Therefore, we planned a bus tour to the Jasmund National Park on the island of Rügen. We will visit the national park centre and the famous chalk cliffs of Rügen. The number of participants is restricted to 200 people. Please feel free to register at ecs2010(at)meeresmuseum.de and book the excursion at the ECS registration desk at the icebreaker or during the conference. Excursion fee will be 10 € (exclusive meals). Two vegetarian meals and two meals with meat will be available for 6.50 € including juice and water.
Departure at the Ozeaneum: 10:00 am
Arrival at the Jasmund National Park: 11:00 am
Departure from Jasmund National Park: 4:00 pm
Expected arrival at the Ozeaneum: 5:00 pm.
- chalk cliffs of Rügen (photo: wikipedia.de)
Short description of the workshops
I. Cetacean Bycatch: effectiveness of current mitigation measures and possible improvements in the future
For many years, cetacean by-catch has been a major conservation issue facing a variety of cetacean species in Europe, with harbour porpoises particularly affected. Mitigation measures developed have included the introduction of acoustic alerting devices (e.g. pingers), fishery management procedures (e.g. no take zones, “quotas", and effort management), and gear modification (e.g. changes in net type, acoustically reflective nets, floating head ropes, separator grids, etc). Within the EU Common Fisheries Policy, there have been a number of new regulations introducing mitigation measures with the aim of reducing by-catch. Notable amongst these have been Council Regulations 2371/2002 (Article 2) regarding the Common Fisheries Policy, 92/43/EEC (Article 12.4) calling for by-catch monitoring programmes, and 812/2004 & 2187/2005 that introduced the widespread use of pingers in particular gillnet fisheries and phased out driftnets in the Baltic.
Unfortunately, for various reasons, a number of the measures outlined above have not been very successful. Therefore a new approach is needed that will lead to a closer collaboration with fishermen to reduce unwanted mortality. This workshop, to be conducted in collaboration with ASCOBANS, the European Commission and North Sea Foundation, aims to provide an up to date review of mitigation measures and their effectiveness - their strengths and limitations, and then to discuss possible new cooperative approaches to improve the chances of successful mitigation of cetacean by-catch amongst different fisheries within Europe.
The programme can be downloaded here.
- harbour seal (photo: S. Fomin)
II. Vision in marine mammals
Workshop cancelled!
Marine mammals apply a multitude of sensory organs for behaviours such as orientation, prey detection or prey pursuit. However, most information on the sensory organs of marine mammals available to date is on acoustics. Little is known about other senses such as vision. But the exciting data, theoretical considerations and behavioural observations on vision support the fact that marine mammals might use their visual system for various tasks if light is not limiting and vision is not impaired by e. g. particle that cloud the water. Vision could be used for purposes of orientation and navigation on the basis of e. g. visual landmarks or polarized light of the sun and the moon. To give an example, it was experimentally shown in harbour seals that they can see stars. Furthermore, seals seem to be able to identify a load star out of the night sky which they could use to steer by following the loadstars of learned star courses. To conclude, we assume that vision among the other senses is important for marine mammals. Thus we would like to devote this workshop to this specific sense.
All scientists with an interest in vision in marine mammals are encouraged to attend this workshop. During the first part of this workshop, we will have spoken presentations to describe the status quo of vision research in marine mammals. The presentations will cover topics from basic mechanisms of vision to more complex visually guided behaviours. In the second part of the workshop, we want to discuss on the exciting data as well as on interesting observations in order to get ideas about what marine mammals could be capable of concerning visually guided behaviours. In the end, we would like to extend the discussion on how these ideas could be approached in experimental situations in captive animals as well as in the field or theoretically.
III. Best Practices in Marine Mammal Research
Workshop cancelled!
The ECS Science Advisory Committee is helping building guidelines for best practice in marine mammal science as well as other relevant information when planning or conducting a research project that would benefit from advice. This is meant to be useful to define the pros and cons of various forms of potentially intrusive/invasive research, ranging from photo-ID through to skin swabbing, biopsy sampling, different attachment procedures for radio tags, acoustics experiments, and any capture process.
From the 2009 Conference onwards, the programme of each annual conference includes an open workshop on best science practice where all members of the ECS are invited to address and discuss relevant issues with the members of the Committee. During the workshop, invited presentations address one or several themes to initiate the debate. The conclusions of the workshops, once reviewed, will then be published in the ECS website.
- photo: N. Tregenza, Chelonia
IV. C-POD workshop
A training workshop aimed primarily at users of CPOD.exe to view and analyse static acoustic monitoring C-POD data. The format will be a series of discussions of short presentations, and practical sessions using attendees laptops in groups of 1, 2 or 3. It will include some or all of these topics
Morning: An introduction to C-PODs.
1. Cutting the data burden down to size: What do C-PODs log?
2. Millions of clicks: How to examine your data.
3. Waves, Whales, WUTS: Things from the ultrasonic underworld.
4. Tough work, easy work: False positives and false negatives
Afternoon: SAM projects using C-PODs.
1. Managing large files
2. Choice of statistics
3. Dolphins , Porpoises and other sp.
4. Noise metrics
5. Calibration
You can book for either morning or afternoon, or both.
V. Marine Mammal Morphology
During the last two centuries, the fundamental morphological and anatomical work of cetologists and marine mammalogists around the world has always been of extreme value as a background and footing of contemporary research. And also today the understanding of form and function of structures is urgently required by modern integrative and holistic approaches to mammalian biology. This is particularly important since new technological advances in scientific visualization and mathematical modelling have brought about a wave of activity across the entire range of marine mammalogy. Interestingly, actual ontogenetic and phylogenetic studies based on morphological characteristics and correlations are encouraged by modern genetic approaches. In this respect molecular biological results and morphological analyses can now elucidate each other in order to render a more complete picture of evolution.
The purpose of the Marine Mammal Morphology Workshop is (1st) to give an overview of actual morphological research in the field of marine mammalogy by talks of leading experts, and (2nd) to yield discussions on morphological topics between experts and graduate and PhD students. In toto we are planning to have about eight half-hour talks and up to six 15 minutes talks on current projects during this one-day workshop.
The program of the workshop is dedicated to the morphological basis of cetacean life-style including comparisons to structural adaptations in other aquatic mammals such as pinnipeds and manatees. It is the goal of this workshop to encourage long-term international research activities in structural research on marine mammals not only as a matrix for in-depth phylogenetic reconstructions but also for integrative work with respect to physiological and molecular disciplines. Last not least we should like to stress the necessity to stimulate and coordinate future research on rare and endangered species such as beaked whales and river dolphins.
For further information and registration please contact us: cetaceans(at)live.de
The preliminary programme can be downloaded here.
VI. SAMBAH – Static Acoustic Monitoring of the Baltic Sea Harbour Porpoise
SAMBAH – Static Acoustic Monitoring of the Baltic Sea Harbour Porpoise – is a five year project funded by LIFE+ Nature, starting in January 2010. The project will use static acoustic monitoring data as input to point transect statistics in order to calculate density, total abundance and preferred habitats of the Baltic Sea harbor porpoise. 300 SAM units will be deployed in a random systematic grid in the waters of Sweden, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany and Denmark. The project area is defined by waters 5-80 m deep east of the Limhamn and Darss underwater ridges and south of approximately latitude 60°20’N. The SAM units will be kept in operation for 2 full years, starting in 2011. Auxiliary data will be collected by the deployment of satellite and acoustic tags, attached to porpoises in Danish waters. Habitat preferences and areas with higher risk of conflicts with anthropogenic activities will be investigated by spatial modelling. The results should make possible an appropriate designation of SCIs for the species within the Natura 2000 network as well as other relevant mitigation measures.
This workshop will present SAMBAH and its partners through a number of presentations from the people involved. We will invite the participants to discuss certain aspects of the project, such as constraints and possibilities of the methods used and the possible implementations of results for conservation measures.
The preliminary schedule for the open workshop can be downloaded here.
VII. Fixed Transect surveys for cetaceans on ferries and other reasearch platforms - best practise and collaboration on research and policy applications
Since the mid 1990s there has been an increase in cetacean surveys on research platforms operating along fixed transects, particularly commercial ferries. In 2001, for example, a partnership of groups carrying out ferry surveys in NW European waters was established – ARC (the Atlantic Research Coalition). ARC now comprises 11 partners, who collectively sampling over 10,000km of trackline per month. In the Mediterranean ferry surveys started in 1989 in central Tyrrhenian sea (lasting 3 continuous years) and, at present, several research bodies, many of them networked together, undertake fixed transect using ferries as research platforms.
Ferries provide a number of advantages for surveying cetaceans: (1) they enable extensive seasonal/year-round survey effort over a large spatial scale at low cost (through sponsorship by ferry companies), (2) monthly repeat sampling can increase the precision of annual abundance estimates (3) a time-series of annual data can increase statistical power to detect long-term trends more quickly, (4) by repeatedly sampling the same transect, they reduce spatial heterogenetity and allow the investigation of relationships between cetacean occurrence and environmental and temporal variables; (5) they have high potential to engage large numbers of the general public in the work of cetacean researchers.
Most EU countries are required to monitor trends in cetacean status, although there is a gap between policy need and the availability of funding for delivery. Ferry and other fixed transect survey platforms survey data has considerable potential as a low-cost tool to inform conservation research and policy. For example (1) annual status and longer-term trends of individual species and multi-species groupings can be used for a variety of purposes (e.g. FCS reporting under the Habitats and Sea Strategy Directives and compliance with international legislation such as ACCOBAMS), (2) temporal and seasonal abundance and occupancy data can be used to assess climate change impacts (3) relative density and occurrence data can be used to model current and future species distribution in relation to climatic, oceanographic and anthropogenic variables.
The aims of this workshop are (1) to identify the current extent of ferry and other fixed transect survey activity by European research groups , (2) to demonstrate how ferry data has been used for research and conservation policy (3) to identify best practice (field methods, database management, rapid annual reporting techniques) both for current and new groups interested in setting up similar programmes, (4) to identify opportunities for collaboration including projects that utilise combined data (e.g. to develop a cetacean biodiversity indicator) and have a direct policy use ;(5) to develop the theory and methods for using fixed transect surveys to monitor cetacean populations.
This is highly topical given that there is pressing need for status data on cetaceans from a variety of commercial, governmental and non-governmental stakeholders.
VIII. GIS Student workshop
Over the past years, GIS (Geographic Information System) has increasingly become one of the key tools in studying marine mammal ecology and has been very useful in informing conservation and management decisions. With GIS, data analysis is interesting, easier to interpret and allows the user to effectively visualise the data. The purpose of this workshops is to provide an overview of the GIS basics and to enable students to learn how to use GIS software.
The programme for the workshop can be downloaded here.
IX. Pile driving in offshore windfarms: effects on harbour porpoises, mitigation measures and standards
In the last years a number of offshore windfarms were constructed along the European coasts. Investigations reveal clear avoidance behaviour of harbour porpoises in a quite extended area during pile driving. Mitigation measures are therefore urgently necessary. Several questions in regard with the effects of pile driving on harbour porpoises, their mitigation and standards available still need to be discussed.
Has the temporary avoidance behaviour of harbour porpoises long term impacts on the population level? What do we know about cumulative effects and how can we assess them? Which monitoring design fits the needs of investigating such effects? Which are the most effective and practical mitigation measures nowadays? How can we develop common mitigation standards?
The workshop aims to provide background information on current status of research on the effects of pile driving on harbour porpoises and on the development of effective mitigation measures and standards. Researchers are invited to discuss items regarding pile driving effects on harbour porpoises, mitigation measures and standards together with representatives of licensing authorities, nature conservation authorities, NGO‘s and the offshore industry.
Open call to participants until 15th January 2010:
1. Speakers for contribution in the field of assessment of harbour porpoise reactions to pile driving for offshore windfarms, in the field of development and offshore practice of mitigation measures and on perspectives for common standards on mitigation procedures.
2. Posters on effects of pile driving and mitigation measures practiced or under development
3. Participants for round table discussion on effective mitigation and common standards.
The programme and the abstracts for the workshop can be downloaded here.
X. White-beaked and White-sided Dolphins: Two North Atlantic Species in Their Environment
The white-beaked dolphin Lagenorhynchus albirostris and the white-sided dolphin Leucopleurus acutus both are endemic to the North Atlantic where they are considered among the commonest and most widely distributed dolphin species. And yet for both species, the available biological information remains scarce.
The white-sided dolphin was described in 1828 without specification of a type locality, the white-beaked dolphin almost two decades later in 1846 from two North Sea coast localities. Over the following decades both species frequently were confused with each other and other dolphin species, namely the bottlenose dolphin and common dolphin.
Only in more recent years have new research programmes been developing, and already ongoing efforts on this species are intensifying.
The purpose of the workshop is to bring together all new information for a thorough discussion of the species, encompassing the following list of topics:
Nomenclature, Morphology and Anatomy, Acoustics, Distribution, Population Structure, Reproduction, Photo ID, Ecology, Diet, Parasites, Pollutants, Climate Change, Interspecific Competition.
