Request For Comments
Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST)
Draft Implementation Plan
Comment Deadline: Monday, 6 June 2005.
For more information or to comment on the Bering Ecosystem Study
Draft Implementation Plan, please go to:
http://www.arcus.org/Bering/oiw/best_workshop_05.html
The National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs (NSF-OPP) is
supporting a planning process for the Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST), a
multi-year research initiative to improve understanding of the effects
of climate variability, at multiple temporal and spatial scales, on
eastern Bering Sea marine ecosystems. The BEST science plan, published
in October 2004, provides background information and frames science
questions to guide future integrated, interdisciplinary studies of
eastern Bering Sea marine ecosystems. The proposed studies focus on the
mechanisms and processes that determine the biological production and
the fate of this production as it is transferred through the ecosystem
to upper-trophic-level consumers, including humans. The BEST program
will be a major effort, requiring collaborative research among multiple
institutions and disciplines, the deployment of multiple ships and
long-term instrument arrays, and satellite-based remote sensing studies.
The BEST program will interface with other national and international
programs investigating the effects of climate change on high-latitude
marine ecosystems.
A related research effort, "Sustaining the Bering Ecosystem" is a
developing plan for social science research around the Bering Sea that
will be integrated with the BEST program. "Sustaining the Bering
Ecosystem" is intended to provide the basis for interdisciplinary and
holistic research that will address the role of humans in sustaining the
Bering Sea ecosystem, and vice versa.
The BEST Science Steering Committee has drafted an implementation plan
for the BEST program, which is available for community comment until
Monday, 6 June 2005. The BEST Draft Implementation Plan will also be
reviewed at an open Implementation Workshop during the international
Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) Symposium on Climate
Variability and Sub-arctic Marine Ecosystems in Victoria, B.C., Canada,
16-20 May 2005.
The BEST Open Implementation Workshop will be held on the first day of
the Symposium (16 May), and the last day (20 May) will be an open
Implementation Workshop for Ecosystem Studies of Sub-Arctic Seas
(ESSAS), a regional program in GLOBEC. This will be an excellent
opportunity for those interested in research in the Bering Sea or
elsewhere in the sub-arctic seas to help shape these emerging research
programs.
More information on the Bering Ecosystem Study and "Sustaining the
Bering Ecosystem", including the BEST Science Plan and BEST Draft
Implementation Plan, is available on the ARCUS website:
http://www.arcus.org/Bering/index.html
More information on the GLOBEC symposium is available on the GLOBEC web
site:
http://www.pml.ac.uk/globec/structure/regional/essas/symposium/annoucem…