Peter H. Wiebe and Robert C. Groman (WHOI)
The U.S. GLOBEC (GLOBal ocean ECosystems dynamics) research program on Georges Bank, which was initiated in 1994, conducted a three-phase broad-scale and process-oriented field study for a six year period ending in December 1999. During the same period, modeling and retrospective/synthesis analyses were also taking place. The field program has now been completed and many scientific papers describing the results of specific experiments and events have been published. However, a directed effort now is needed to enable investigators who participated in the program and other investigators to collectively bring about an integration and synthesis of the data sets in order to reach a new level of understanding about the physical and biological processes controlling the abundance of target species in the Georges Bank region and more generally of their predators and prey. PhaseIV of the US GLOBEC Georges Bank program is thus focused on the synthesis of the results from the program's earlier phases. Each year a series of related workshops will be held to focus on a particular step in the synthesis. Each workshop will focus on a specific topic with a set of specific objectives. At the end of each year a symposium will be held to present the products of these integrated analyses. The last year of the synthesis will be dedicated to the production of a book that will present the overall results of the program and address the original programmatic goals articulated in the Implementation Plan (GLOBEC Report 6).
This proposal requests the funds to support the yearly workshops and the symposia. These funds will defray the costs of the meeting facilities and pay partial or full travel support for those investigators whose presence at one or more of these meetings is deemed important by the Executive Committee and yet may not have sufficient funds to attend the meetings on their own. The funds will also be used to assist in the documentation of the symposia through the preparation of reports, which will be published both in hard copy and on the Program's web site (http://globec.whoi.edu/), as has been done in the past. During the fourth year of the project, funds will be used to assist in the planning and development of the book showing the results of the analysis and synthesis of the GLOBEC Georges Bank program data sets and modeling efforts.