Matt Simpson attended the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Portland, Oregon last week
“Bridging Genes to Ecosystems: Aquatic Science at a Time of Rapid Change” was the theme for this historic joint meeting of four of the leading aquatic scientific societies: Society for Freshwater Science (SFS), Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), Phycological Society of America (PSA), and Society of Wetland Scientists (SWS). The meeting built bridges across the disciplines within the field of aquatic science and explored many exciting opportunities for collaboration among scientists. Over 3,000 people attended from countries all over the world.
Matt is the Treasurer of the European Chapter of the Society Wetland Scientists and on the Membership Committee but it wasn’t all society business; he also gave a presentation entitled ‘SYSTEM VIABILITY AND PARTICIPATORY VISUAL METHODS – APPROACHES FOR RECOGNISING SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL VALUE IN AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS IN THE GUIANA SHIELD REGION’ which reported on activities within Project COBRA. This is a collaborative project that WWT Consulting is working on in South America. More information about Project COBRA can be found here.
The meeting was really inspiring as some amazing work was presented on wetland restoration, assessment and management from around the world. Wetland science is really pushing new boundaries with projects presented on subjects such as DNA mapping of plant communities, to wetland soil core pollen analysis to determine climate change over the past 15,000 years,to 3D habitat mapping using drones, to the role wetlands play in carbon sequestration and mitigation of climate change. This new science is helping wetland managers come up with practical approaches to threats from invasive species, pollution, climate change, flooding and storm damage to ensure biodiversity and ecosystem services are maintained across wetland types.
Check out the website for abstracts from the conference here.
