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EcoRe3 Workshop 1
Call for Applications
27th-31st March, Finse Alpine Research Station, Norway
Overview:
Resilience is a key attribute needed to ensure the persistence of Earth's ecosystems in the face of
increasing anthropogenic stressors and climate change. The palaeorecord provides a long-term
understanding of ecological responses to disturbance. However, definitions of resilience, and the
methods used to measure it, can differ markedly between studies due to the variety of components
that can be identified. These disagreements make it difficult to compare and identify systems with
more or less resilience and to plan future mitigation strategies, and to understand the underlying
biotic and abiotic controls of resilience along ecological and climatological gradients.
EcoRe3 is a new PAGES working group aiming to devise a set of standardised approaches for
comparing components of resilience from the palaeorecord. In a preliminary workshop in March
2016, we outlined the theoretical basis of two alternative approaches for deriving components of
ecological resilience in sediment data. One approach is based on measuring resistance (the
amount of change following a disturbance) and recovery rates (the speed to return to equilibrium
following a disturbance) using multi-proxy records. A second combines statistical modelling,
present day and past information on vegetation distributions to infer probabilities of biome
transitions for a given set of climate conditions.
Workshop aims:
EcoRe3 aims to further develop these ideas, and implement the quantitative approaches to put
these ideas into practice. Therefore, the first workshop has the following objectives:
1. Explore further the theoretical ideas behind different ways to measure resilience in long-term
ecological records.
2. Work to develop quantitative approaches designed to measure and compare resilience to
climate and other disturbance in long-term ecological data based on these different theoretical
approaches.
3. Use a series of high-resolution multi-proxy records to test the applicability and implementation
of these methods in a range of environmental settings.
Logistics:
We will meet in Bergen on the afternoon of Monday 27th March and take the 2-hour train to Finse,
where the workshop will take place in the Alpine Research Station. The workshop will finish on the
Friday morning, and we will return to Bergen by lunchtime.
All travel within Norway (i.e. trains to Finse and back), in addition to food and accommodation at
the Finse Research Station is provided. Some funds are available to support travel of Early Career
Researchers. Please specify if you would like to be considered for this support on the application
form.
Applications:
All participants are asked to apply by 27 January 2017.
Preference will be given to researchers with a combination of specific study system expertise and
data access, analysis skills and/or theoretical ecological understanding. Preference will also be
given to early-career researchers.
Contact [email protected] for more information.
Application form
Name:
Affiliation:
Early Career Researcher (Submitted PhD within the last 5-years)
If you would like to be considered for funding support, please mark this box
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Summary of your research interests, expertise and experience of relevance to the workshop.
Please state explicitly your study region of interest, analytical experience and/ or access to data
sets that you could contribute to the workshop. We will aim to build a balanced participant list
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based on study regions, analytical skills and theoretical ecological understanding.
Please also attach a 1-page CV with relevant publications listed.