*Please note: Due to restrictions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Foresight Workshop will take place entirely online on 27th September 2021 – 1st October 2021.
The Mediterranean Sea is a hot spot for marine biodiversity. Despite covering less than 1% of the world’s oceans it hosts about 10% of marine species and contains a high percentage (25-30%) of endemic species. Mediterranean marine ecosystems support the development of coastal and national wide socio-economic activities including food provision, coastal protection and tourism. Unfortunately, the Mediterranean region is also considered a climate change hotspot, where the respective impacts of warming are very pronounced and relatively well documented.
The foresight workshop CommonConcept will advance approaches to support inter- and transdisciplinary science via qualitative conceptual models to inform IEA throughout European seas and beyond. In doing so, the organisers aim to create good practice guidelines for coherent conceptual mapping for IEAs, through scoping participant needs, skill sharing, and knowledge transfer.
Due to ongoing travel restrictions, the organisers have decided to delay this workshop until May, 2022. Microscale Ocean Biophysics fosters relaxed face-to-face interactions in order to promote a free-flowing exchange of ideas and as such the organisers believe it is worth delaying. The venue will remain the same and further updates will be announced as the rescheduled workshop takes shape.
Marine coastal areas host highly productive ecosystems that are threatened by the high rate of urban development in these areas and associated stressors affecting ecosystem processes. An integrated and effective assessment of the state of marine coastal ecosystems must rely on the knowledge of all human pressures at different levels of biological organization. This includes microbiomes, which have been re-evaluated as a ‘bank of hidden biodiversity’, with fundamental, albeit still unknown, functional potential capable of opening up new frontiers in scientific knowledge.
