Fri, January 4, 2019 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS RESEARCH LABORATORY (AERL). Speaker: Dr Gabriel Reygondeau
Postdoctoral Fellow, IOF
Location: AERL Theatre (Rm. 120)
Quantifying species spatial distribution and biodiversity pattern represent one of the pillar of ecology. The ocean and human society are in a closed interaction loop with the ocean providing benefits such as food provision and human influencing the natural state of the ocean either by direct pressures such as fisheries or indirect pressures such as modification of climate. Services provided by the Ocean are structured at local or regional scale by the biodiversity pool of species occurring in the areas defining the trophodynamic of the ecosystem. Therefore, the study of species distributions and their interaction allows the characterization of ecosystem functioning and the quantification of the potential benefit of the Ocean to human society.
This discipline of biogeography has been developed in terrestrial ecology to study species distribution and macro-ecological patterns of the fauna. Marine biogeography has for a long time not been studied due to the large extent and volume of the water mass of the ocean associated with the relative technological limitation to sample the marine realm. In recent years, the development of international collaboration, online available database and statistical tools has boosted the discipline allowing to determine the factors setting the extent of species geographic ranges and identifying marine macro-ecological patterns. Moreover, statistical tools such as species distribution models helps defining current and future patterns of biodiversity. In a context of global climate change, driven largely by greenhouse gas emissions from anthropogenic activities has modified the physical and biological compartment of the oceans, it is now crucial to quantify current and future patterns to adapt proper measure for diversity conservation and management of exploited species stock.
