Ecosystem Modelling

Welcome to the Ecosystem Modelling Graduate Course, Fish 501

Schedule

January 12 – April 14, 2021

Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:00 – 11:00 Pacific time. Except Thursday, Jan 14, 12.00-14.00 Pacific.

Location: Online using Zoom (and FaceBook Live)

Participation

The course is open for UBC graduate students with interest in quantitative modelling, as well as for some upper-level UBC undergraduate students, based on UBC requirements. Students from other universities in Western Canada may be able to participate through the Western Deans Agreement. The course serves as a Methods course, where such are required (IOF, IRES, ...)

Because of the Covid situation, UBC does not allow on-campus classes for the coming semester, therefore the course is online via Zoom. This opens for wider participation in the course, and we allow informal auditing of the course. Please contact Villy Christensen if you are interested.

In addition to Zoom, we will broadcast the classes directly on FaceBook Live, available through the Ecopath FaceBook page.

If you would like to un-offically participate in the course (and follow it throughtout) please contact Villy. We have a considerable number of registered students participating and will only be able to accommodate a few more directly on Zoom. For any additional participants (un-official auditors), we make the course available through FaceBook Live. So, if you are in doubt of how much you'll be able to participate, FaceBook Live is the way to go, this does not require any registration or commitment.

We make recordings of the lectures and Q/A (not class discussions and tutorials) available through www.ecopath.org's YouTube channel.

Description

The course is focused on how the Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE, www.ecopath.org) modelling framework can be used to address scientific and policy questions related to food web modelling, and notably how to address questions as part of an Ecosystem Based Management process. The underlying theories will be introduced throughout, but emphasis will be on hands-on with actual implementation.

With the purpose of providing an overview of how EwE is being used for Ecosystem Based Management, we have invited a series of guest lecturers to give presentations at the course. For details, see the Schedule page.

The course will cover a series of topics:

• Modelling strategy

• Data requirements and availability

• Extracting data from online databases, notably FishBase

• Parameters and mass-balance

• Economic and social aspects: the value chain from producer to consumer

• Time-dynamic modeling

  • • The foraging arena

    • Fitting ecosystem models to time series data

• Modeling environmental impacts and mediation

  • • Environmental Impact Assessments

• Uncertainty

  • • Monte Carlo approaches

    • Management Strategy Evaluation

• Introduction to spatial modeling

• Spatial modelling with habitat capacity/species distribution models

• Spatial optimizations/zoning

There will be 3-4 assignments during the course, and no final or mid-term exams.

Course materials

There is no textbook for the course, but we will read a number of publications, accompanied by presentations and tutorials. If you follow the course (for credit or auditing), you are expected to read the assigned papers before each class.

Software

Visit www.ecopath.org for information on Ecopath with Ecosim. We will initially be using the new EwE6.6 version for the course, please download the newest available version from www.ecopath.org.

EwE is a free, open source program, and it (still) requires Microsoft Windows as operating system. On Mac's and Linux it is necessary to use a virtualization software and install Windows (any more recent version is fine). There are several virtualization software packages that can be used, including open source ones (i.e. free versions). Oracle's free VirtualBox works fine. Please try to sort this out before the course, or discuss with Villy as needed.

Guest lecturers:

• Jan 14: Beth Fulton, CSIRO: A guide to ecosystem models and their environmental applications & where ecological gaps remain. Note at 12-2 PM

• Jan 21: Jason Link, NOAA: Making EBM operational

  • Villy Christensen: EwE’s contribution to EBM

• Jan 26: Deng Palomares, UBC: Getting data for models: FishBase

• Jan 28: Carl Walters, UBC: Modelling dynamic ecosystems

• Feb 2: Carl Walters, UBC: What is a dynamic model?

• Feb 4: David Chagaris, U of Florida: Ecosystem approach for managing menhaden

• Feb 11: Jacob Bentley, SAMS, Scotland: Ecosystem based approach to fishery management for the Irish Sea

• Feb 25: Natalia Serpetti, OGS, Trieste, Italy: Ecosystem impacts of cumulative effects from climate and fisheries

• Mar 4: Santiago de la Puente, UBC: Integrated ecological-economic models.

  • Villy Christensen: Policy optimization

• Mar 11: Yu-Chun Kao, USGS: modelling invasions, Great Lakes.

  • Villy Christensen: Review of modelling invasions

• Mar 18: Will Walters, Penn State: Contaminant tracing with Ecotracer

• Mar 25: Jeroen Steenbeek, EII, Barcelona: The source code of EwE

• Apr 1: Kim de Muetsert, USM, Ocean Springs, MS: Evaluating tradeoffs in coastal management.

  • Vaso Karpouzi, Hemmera, Burnaby BC: Using ecosystem modelling for environmental impact assessment

• Apr 8: Marta Coll, ICM-CSIC, Barcelona: Food web modelling analysis of global ocean futures

• Also see Schedule

Instructors:

• Villy Christensen – http://oceans.ubc.ca/villy-christensen/

• Marta Coll - ICM-CSIC, Barcelona

• Leigh McGaughey – River Institute

• Santiago de la Puente – s.delapuente@oceans.ubc.ca