• Good practices for estimating damage to deep-sea coral and sponge habitat from existing bycatch data
  

Chair: Heather Coleman, NOAA 

Date and time: Wednesday 31^st May 13:45-17:30. Pentland Room (JMCC) 

Description:  

A common problem internationally is how to best interpret data on bycatch of deep-sea corals and sponges to understand and manage the effects of fishing gear on habitats. Therefore, this workshop is guided by the following goals: (1) Share current good practices regarding the use of fishery-dependent and fishery-independent bycatch data to improve our ability to locate and understand the effects of fishing gear on deep-sea corals and sponges; (2) Identify methods of reducing bycatch and gear interactions through commercial fishery management; and (3) Identify specific research questions and knowledge gaps that need to be addressed for the estimation of fishing impacts and development of management-based bycatch reduction. For this workshop, fishing gears to be considered include trawls, longlines, pots, traps, and others that touch on or near the seafloor. We consider bycatch as coral or sponge material that is brought on board. We hope that sharing international strategies for collecting and interpreting bycatch data will help scientists and managers improve methods of analysis that can inform policies. Desired outcomes from this workshop include a set of relevant international references and a paper summarizing international strategies and agreed-upon good practices. 

• Image analysis made easy: introduction to a new machine learning software for automatically measuring species area 

Chairs: Poppy Clark, Abraham Smith, Laurence De Clippele 

Date and time: Wednesday 31^st May 13:45-15:30. Holyrood Room (JMCC) 

Description:  

This workshop will present an open-source and user-friendly machine learning tool capable of measuring species surface area from images. The workshop will demonstrate the tool’s key features, such as its intuitive training process, in-built metrics calculator and model-sharing capabilities. During the workshop, attendees will be guided through the installation of the tool and gain first-hand experience in training models on a practice dataset.  

• BOEM Town Hall: 50 Years of Ocean Science for Decisions in the US Offshore 

Chair: Jennifer Ewald, BOEM 

Date and time: Wednesday 31^st May 13:45-15:30. Salisbury Room (JMCC) 

Description:  

 Since its inception in 1973, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) Environmental Studies Program (ESP) has provided valuable information to predict, assess, and manage impacts from offshore energy and marine mineral exploration, development, and production activities on human, marine, and coastal environments. The vision of BOEM’s ESP is to realize ocean stewardship through science. This approach complements BOEM’s mission of managing development of U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) energy and mineral resources in an environmentally and economically responsible way. The ESP also seeks to align the program with the broader stewardship role the Department of the Interior (DOI) plays in managing the Nation’s public lands—the federal government and ocean users working cooperatively with mutual respect to achieve shared natural resource management goals. Dr. Rodney Cluck and his team will be presenting on the historical program and goals for future collaboration and scientific stewardship. https://www.boem.gov/environment/environmental-studies-program-celebrates-golden-anniversary 

• Public engagement for ocean literacy: approaches and implementation 

Chair: Hermione Cockburn, Dynamic Earth 

Date and time: Wednesday 31^st May 16:30-18:00. Dynamic Earth 

Description:  

This 1.5-hour workshop will explore different models for engaging public audiences with deep-sea science. The workshop is suitable for anyone with an interest in ocean literacy and will draw on examples from recent projects led by Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh’s science centre. It will include ideas and examples of hands-on activities and also cover evaluation techniques. 

•  Applying data to the challenges of restoration, protection, and management of deep sea corals 

Chair: Kristopher Benson, NOAA 

Date and time: Thursday 1^st June 14:15-16:00. Pentland Room (JMCC). 

Description:  

This workshop will seek input on applications of data compiled and generated in the first three years of ongoing projects to restore of deep sea coral communities in the Gulf of Mexico that were impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Workshop conveners will provide in-depth examples of project team applications including gap analyses to prioritize and direct implementation of specific project activities in specific geographic and locations to meet project objectives and performance criteria. These internally-focused applications support establishment of monitoring, sampling, data collection, and data management standards; sequencing implementation mission and mobilization plans; and assessing progress towards project objectives and overall restoration outcomes. Conveners would like feedback from workshop participants on these self-reflective applications intended or performed by the project teams. Participants are also encouraged to consider and discuss the potential for externally-focused applications of these data as they are made public through open-access portals, and to explore this data management and evaluation effort as a model for others supporting the restoration, protection, and management of deep sea coral communities globally.

•  Creating Vital Metrics for Cold Water Corals: Establishing an Essential Ocean Variable (EOV) for Scleractinia and Stylasteridae 

Description: This capacity building workshop on the 3-4th June aims to provide practical guidance on the maintenance of cold-water corals (CWC) in aquaria, offering an overview of the different aquaria systems, collection methods, feeding and daily care. It also provides talks by experienced researchers working with different CWC species in aquaria, addressing a variety of techniques for ecophysiological research, and using different life stages (adult and larval stages). Researchers will also provide advice on troubleshooting, how to address the challenges of experimental design and how to extrapolate data collected in the lab to the natural environment. We believe this workshop will be valuable to any researcher interested in conducting experimental work with cold-water corals in aquaria.