Workshop held to discuss population connectivity in marine systems

Population Connectivity in Marine Systems

Larval dispersal and marine population connectivity.

Connectivity, or the exchange of individuals among marine populations, is a central topic in marine ecology. For most benthic marine species with complex life cycles, this exchange occurs primarily during the pelagic larval stage. The small size of larvae coupled with the vast and complex fluid environment they occupy hamper our ability to quantify dispersal and connectivity. Evidence from dire...

Rotavirus Vaccine Workshop Held

More than 125 participants from at least 15 countries attended the Fifth Rotavirus Vaccine Workshop at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, October 16-17, 1995. Rotavirus has emerged as the most important cause of severe diarrhea in children worldwide. It is a problem not only in developing countries, where it kills an estimated 870,000 children each year, b...

Reproductive Timing Alters Population Connectivity in Marine Metapopulations

Populations of most marine organisms are connected by the dispersal of larval stages, with profound implications for marine conservation. Because of the extreme effort needed to empirically measure larval exchange, multispecies conservation efforts must estimate connectivity by extrapolation using taxonomy, adult distribution, life history, behavior, or phenology. Using a 6-year record of conne...

Population Genetics, Demographic Connectivity, and the Design of Marine Reserves

Genetic analyses of marine population structure often find only slight geographic differentiation in species with high dispersal potential. Interpreting the significance of this slight genetic signal has been difficult because even mild genetic structure implies very limited demographic exchange between populations, but slight differentiation could also be due to sampling error. Examination of ...