mizer course - Introduce yourself

[giscus[bot]]

mizer course - Introduce yourself

https://course.mizer.sizespectrum.org/introduce-yourself.html

[gustavdelius]

I am Gustav Delius. I am an applied mathematician at the University of York. I have been interested in the mathematical side of size-spectrum modelling since 2008. On the more practical side, I took part in the MINOUW EU project that was concerned with the minimisation of bycatch and am now leading the modelling in the Pyramids of Life project working towards bringing fishing more in line with the productivity of the ecosystem.

Since I took over the development of mizer in 2014 I have worked to develop easier ways to build and use mizer models and I am looking forward to explaining the new approaches in this course. I am grateful to Asta Audzijonyte for pushing for the creation of this course.

Asta and I are currently working on the course materials, so we will be reading your introductions with interest to make sure our course materials help you reach your goals.

[kosuka]

I am Kennedy Osuka. I am a Research Associate at the University of York working under the Pyramid of Life project. I am interested in size-based modelling of fish community using the mizer package.

[gustavdelius]

And I would like to add that Kennedy is helping us polish the course tutorials by testing them before they go life. Thanks Kennedy!

[ahalf0rd]

Hello Kennedy,

I'm sure you remember that we are co-authors on a paper with Melita. I look forward to our discussions.

[kosuka]

Hi Andy. Great to meet again. I equally look forward to this discussion.

It was a pleasure to work with you on that [paper] (https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5044). As part of my PhD, I applied size spectra analysis to the data in our paper to compare [protection outcomes] (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.113010) but not with Mizer package. I interested to see how the results will be when mizer is applied.

[astaaudzi]

I am Asta Audzijonyte and I work at Nature Research Centre, Lithuania and University of Tasmania, Australia. I study fish sizes and work on fisheries and ecosystems models, climate change impacts and many other questions. This course is a part of Sustainable Inland Fisheries project, but its origins are much older and build on extensive contributions from @Kenhasteandersen @juliablanchard and many other mizer and size spectrum theory developers.

I am excited to meet all the participants and share experiences and knowledge, but also learn from you. I am especially excited to share the mizer multiple resources mizerMR extension of mizer, as this tool will hopefully make mizer even better for modelling coastal and inland ecosystems, where benthic primary production is important.

[crispalaretti]

Hi, I am Cristiane Palaretti and I am a PhD researcher at UIT. My work focus on community trait-based approach related to climate change in fish from the Arctic (Norway). I am very interested in learning modelling size spectrum with the mizer. Thank you for this opportunity.

[gustavdelius]

Hi Cristiane. It is great to see people attacking the climate change problem. I think you will find many others during our online meetings who will be interested in discussing how to use mizer models for that purpose.

[astaaudzi]

Looking forward to meeting you, Christiane.

[ahalf0rd]

Hi, I am Andrew Halford and I work as a Senior Coastal Fisheries Scientist with the Pacific Community, more commonly known as SPC. I am based in Noumea, New Caledonia and work all over the Pacific - or did until COVID struck! A major hurdle to sustainable management of coastal fisheries across the region is the lack of data - i.e. we work with data-poor fisheries. Our team has been leading a push to get better data collection systems in place across countries, with size frequency data as core to the program. I am keen to see how size spectra approaches might work in this situation as a way to quantify fishing effects in a data-poor or data-minimal system.

[gustavdelius]

Hi Andrew. I think mizer does indeed have a lot to offer in data-poor situations and especially if you have size frequency data. Mizer can get away with less data by filling in the missing bit by making sensible assumptions about allometric scaling rules. I hope that also after the school we get a chance to discuss more details about your work.

[astaaudzi]

Hi Andrew. It will be very interesting to learn about your fish datasets and challenges, as I am also interested in working with size based models. For multi-species models like mizer, but also species level models. So we should stay in touch

[Raquel-RuizDiaz]

Hi!, I am Raquel Ruiz and I am a PhD student at Memorial University, Canada. I am interested on working with multispecies size spectrum models. I would like to simulate changes in species size structure and productivity under different climate changes scenarios. I am considering including not just fish but also crustaceans and seal predation to my model.
Unfortunately, this course overlaps with my holidays and I had organised a trip so I will likely miss some classes but I hope I could catch up with the later. Are the lectures going to be recorded?.

Thanks!

[gustavdelius]

Hi Raquel,

your work sounds very interesting. There is so much to investigate about climate change scenarios and I think many others here will be thinking about such issues.

Don't worry and enjoy the holidays. There are no "classes" in the traditional sense. There are the tutorials and worksheets that you can work on at any time and you can submit your work whenever you want feedback and then there are the online meetings where we won't teach but rather share experiences. Just drop in whenever you can.

And we should definitely stay in touch after the course.

[astaaudzi]

Hi Raquel, simulating productivity changes under climate change will be one of our tasks in week 3 and it will be very interesting to see how people tackle this challenge. We have explored this question using mizer in an Australian coastal model (you can see a preprint here if you are interested. See you next week.

[abahl4]

Hello everyone! My name is Alexis Bahl, I am a currently a PhD Candidate in Oceanography at the University of British Columbia where my research focuses on salp diel vertical migration (DVM) in the Southern Ocean. I am specifically aiming to estimate the impact of DVM on carbon export and further disentangle whether this supports trophic efficiency.

Finding a suitable model to conduct this work has been challenging, but through my research, mizer seems to be the best tool to do the job! I'm still uncertain whether I'm going to use the trait-based model or the multispecies model. If we assume DVM varies by life stage, I need to capture the life history, but I also need to capture the residing community to infer how DVM impacts trophic efficiency. With some luck and a ton of effort, I then hope to couple (or simply use the output) this model with a species distribution model to project future scenarios under IPCC RCP scenarios.

Lastly, I want to express my sincere gratitude and excitement for the work that has been put into running this course. I've been reading Julia Blanchard's work for the last couple of years and having the opportunity to learn from the source could not have come at a better time.

Looking forward to meeting and working with all of you!
Alexis

[astaaudzi]

Hi Alexis, modelling salp migration is going to be really interesting and also challenging, since salp is not like a 'usual' fish of mizer models. There are other people who worked on including large and small zooplankton, we should get you in touch with them.

[abahl4]

Hi @astaaudzi , I would greatly appreciate that, thank you so much!

[SamikDatta]

Hi everyone! My name is Samik Datta, and I am a scientist working in Wellington, New Zealand, at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). I work in the Population Modelling group on a wide range of marine modelling projects, including size-based models.

My PhD at the University of York, UK (2008 - 2011) focused on mathematical modelling of marine size spectra, with Richard Law, Gustav Delius and Julia Blanchard. Since then I have maintained a keen interest in size spectrum models, and have recently been involved in building two mizer models for NZ ecosystems - specifically for Chatham Rise, and Tasman and Golden Bays. I am interested in several aspects of size-based models, including seasonal effects, fitting more closely to data (e.g. stomach contents) and adding functionality to the mizer code base.

Looking forwards to meeting everyone and learning more!

[astaaudzi]

Hi Samik, looking forward to meeting you in the course and I am sure we can learn quite a bit from you as well.

[ElyzaPilipaityte]

Hello. My name is Elyza Pilipaityte. I have recently completed my master's degree in biodiversity from Vilnius University, Lithuania. I am thinking about doing PhD at Nature Research Centre, Lithuania. I am interested in climate change and eutrophication effects on aquatic ecosystems. During this course I want to learn size-based modelling of fish community which I hope to use during my future research.

[astaaudzi]

Hi Elyza, it is great that you can attend the course and get some experience. Climate and eutorphication is definitely something we will want to explore

[QinqinLin]

Hi! I'm Qinqin Lin, a Postdoc at Shanghai Ocean University, China. Currently, I'm working as a visiting scholar at the University of Maine, USA. My research focuses on the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean and I am very interested in exploring the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems using mizer. I'm curious about how the temperature effects and the dynamics of the background resources, especially the plankton, are handled in mizer. And I was excited to see that many participants were interested in climate change issues.

Looking forwards to meeting everyone and many thanks for this opportunity!

[astaaudzi]

Hello Qingin, your interest in temperature is clearly shared among many. Mizer can implement lots of different functions on temperature effects, but we will need to make various assumptions and provide parameters. This is the main challenge at the moments. How does temperature affect intake, metabolism and reproduction? We will all need to decide on that. Or explore different options

[sakshisaini20]

Hi! I am Sakshi Saini. I recently completed masters in wildlife sciences from Amity University, India. During my masters, I developed an interest in ecology modelling and I am thinking to explore the effect of climate change on birds. Though this course deals with fishes, I believe that I still learn a lot about modelling.

Looking forward to meeting and working with you all!

[gustavdelius]

Hi Sakshi. We will try our best to convert you from being interested in birds to being interested in fish 😄.

[sakshisaini20]

Hahaaha sure !! 😄

[Debbcwing]

Hello everyone, sorry for the late check-in, my name is Debbie To and I am a PhD student at Jacobs University Bremen, Germany. I have been working with size-based model during my PhD focusing on the phytoplankton community. I have heard about the mizer model for a while and I am very happy for the opportunity to gain some hand-on experience on it through this course. I want to learn about mizer because I would like to see how can we scale-up size-based approach in the food web e.g. from basal species to fish species, and I personally interested in looking at the effects of temperature and nutrient on the size structure of aquatic organisms. I look forward to get some insights from and share experience with the others via this course. Thanks a lot to the organizers!

[gustavdelius]

Hi Debbie. It is great to have someone with experience in plankton modelling in the course. You will discover that the size spectrum dynamics that mizer uses to describe fish is very different from how mizer model the plankton dynamics. The latter is very basic and you may well have ideas of how to improve it.
Many of us in the course share your interests in the effects of temperature and resources on the size structure of aquatic organisms, so there will be much to discuss in the online meetings.

[wojia9888]

Hello everyone, I m Jia Wo, a PhD in fisheries from the Ocean University of China. I implemented a multi-species size spectrum model in a coastal area of China, which is part of the North Yellow Sea, to represent the biological and ecological interactions to provide a better understanding of realistic mixed fisheries. We used this model to evaluate management strategies of mixed and multispecies fisheries. I would like to learn more about the properties and mechanisms of this model so that I can use the model to better compare the consequences of different management strategies. I am looking forward to learning and discuss science in this group.

[astaaudzi]

Hi Jia, nice to meet you and see you online soon. Different management strategies is definitely something worth exploring with mizer

[lucysouthworth]

Hey everyone!

I'm Lucy Southworth, a new PhD candidate at James Cook Uni, working on small scale fisheries in the Kingdom of Tonga. I'm keen to learn how to use the mizer model to assess how these fisheries may shift under climate change scenarios and management regimes. I'm also interested to see if I can use the model to assess how massive acute disturbances (ie. a volcanic eruption) may impact the size-spectra over a gradient of recovering reef fisheries.

Unfortunately, I'm in the field tomorrow but I'm very much looking forward to meeting you all at the following meeting! Lucy :)

[astaaudzi]

Hi Lucy, climate change impacts is definitely high on the list of many participants' interest. See you in the future meetings

[ValentinaPauna]

Hello everyone!

I am Valentina Pauna and I am a Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Sustainability Research (NORSUS). I defended my PhD in May, which was focused on assessing the impacts of microplastics on marine ecosystems, specifically considering marine food webs. A friend of mine suggested that mizer might be a useful tool for me considering my interest in food webs and my, very novice, experience with ecopath with ecosim. I hope to be able to apply what I learn in this course to some possible future projects! I would like to find some ways to use food web modelling to evaluate the direct and indirect distribution and/or accumulation of contaminants among species.

Looking forward to meeting everyone tomorrow!

[astaaudzi]

Hi Valentina. It is an interesting question about the accumulation of contaminants. I suppose you would need to make some assumptions about the rate at which contaminants from food get removed from the organism (if at all) and the concentration of contaminants in different prey items. Once you decide on that then calculating total accumulation should be possible. Once you write a few specific functions

[JorgeFASantos]

Dear all. My name is Jorge Santos and I am a fishery biologist at the university of Tromsø, Norway. For many years I have been interested in size spectra models without having the time to learn about it, other than reading the theory. My interest is in the use of simple ecosystem models for fisheries (and other) applied management tasks. Unfortunately, we are now in the start of the semester here. Lots of things happening and students arriving at my office, and I will not have the time to follow every session or exercise, with great regret. Thanks for organizing this.

[Mlla]

Hello everyone! My name is Mariella Canales, and I am a fishery scientist working at Center for Applied Ecology and Sustainability (www.capes.cl). I work in Fishery Ecology, Stock assessment and marine size spectra. I got my PhD at the University of York, UK (2009-2012 ) working on modeling pelagic fish community with Richard Law and Julia Blanchard. I have kept my interest in size spectra dynamics as empirical and modelling aplications to Fisheries. Thanks Gustav and Asta for organizing this course and the invitation.

[kaitlyn-rl]

Hi everyone! I am Kaitlyn Louth and I have just finished my undergraduate maths degree from the University of York, soon to be starting a PhD at the University of Edinburgh. My dissertation involved collaborating with Cefas and the Pyramids of Life research group to parametrise and calibrate a size spectrum model for the Southwestern ecosystem of the UK, using mizer.

I’m looking forward to learning more about mizer’s capabilities and how I might expand my model.

Thank you very much for the invite and to the organisers!

[brisneve]

Hello everyone! I am Brisneve Edullantes, and I am currently teaching at the University of the Philippines Cebu. My research interests include phytoplankton ecophysiology and climate change ecology. I obtained my PhD at the University of Essex in 2020. My thesis was focused on the thermal responses of the marine phytoplankton and implications to their biogeography in present and future climate. I am interested to know how I can use the mizer to investigate the effect of extreme temperature events on the phytoplankton ecophysiology. Looking forward to learn more about size-spectrum modelling. Thank you for organizing the mizer course!

[jparamo7103]

My name is Jorge Paramo, I am Titular Professor at University of Magdalena, Colombia. My research interests are Fisheries Science, Fisheries Oceanography, Fisheries Acoustics, Marine Ecology. I have a Master (M.Sc.) in Fisheries (University of Concepción, Chile) and a PhD in Natural Sciences (University of Bremen, Germany). I am the convenor of FAO/WECAFC Working group on the Management of Deep Sea Fisheries. I am very interested in learn more about Size spectra because we are working with a PhD student on this topic.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8380-2716
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jorge-Paramo-2
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=IFyCA44AAAAJ&hl=es

[hmorzaria]

Hi, I am Hem Nalini Morzaria-Luna. I am a marine ecologist with dual appointments in conservation non-profits, Long Live the Kings, which focuses on salmon conservation in the Pacific Northwest and CEDO Intercultural, which works with small-scale fisheries in Mexico. I am based in Seattle, WA where I am a Visiting Researcher at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center- NOAA. I use end-to-end models and other modeling approaches to study climate change impacts on fish, fisheries and coastal communities. I currently work with the Atlantis ecosystem model for Puget Sound and want to use it as a basis to build a size-based model. I am looking forward to learning more about mizer. I am sorry I won't be able to join the in-person discussions (either 7 am or 11 pm for me) but I will be following along.
https://hmorzaria.github.io/