We finally got to
the end of our sequence of interviews with the IMBER crew, closing it with a
flourish. We had a quick chat with Dr. Paul Suprenand, an expert modeler
working with the Ecopath family, who also integrates physiology and ecology to
address challenges associated with environmental change, especially related to
fisheries. Paul is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at MOTE, in
Florida (USA).
FEME: What are the advantages and disadvantages of
modelling nature?
 |
| Dr. Paul Suprenand. Source: IMBER |
PAUL: Nature is a
very complex system, it has so many wonderful things to it, but in the model
you cannot always capture all these little differences and they could be very
important. So, the advantage would be that you have a way to look at some of
the most important factors that could influence ecosystems or the animals within
the ecosystem. However, you may lose some of the complexity. What is neat about
the model is that it is more readily understood; you can ask questions or
formulate hypotheses that could actually have some meaningful results to direct
further research, or to help guide policies or ways in which you look at the
system. So, overall, I think it is a pretty powerful tool, you have many
different ways that the models can actually maybe capture some of the complexity
lost in the individual model.
FEME: What would be the next steps for the
improvement of Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) approach?
PAUL: I think one of
the neediest things is actually coming out, and it is something I had wanted
for a long time. In the Ecospace portion
of the modelling framework, there is now a way that you can start updating each
of the individual maps for environmental drivers or things that may drive those
trophic dynamics or energy exchanges in the ecosystem. For instance, in the
artic or in the Antarctic, when you have sea ice coming into the ecosystem that
is a very important part of how animals respond, their distribution, or whatever
may occur. Historically in the ecospace system, you would have a static map,
and so you could not see some of these differences of the environment drivers, like
sea ice, overtime. Now there is a way that you can actually integrate or upload
this data like the sea ice, so that when it changes you can also see the animal
or food web responses as a whole. That is pretty cool, it is getting more into
the complexity of the real life.
FEME: What changes would you like to see in the scientific
community?
PAUL: I think we all
have a need in our individual sciences to do more collaboration. Things like
this [ClimEco Summer School], those
workshops, are wonderful; you cannot reproduce them over emails, phone calls and
the kind of relations you have here. However, I also think that us as
individuals in the science, we have probably a greater opportunity these days
to communicate our sciences, whether in social media or meetings on public
libraries engaging the community in which we are living. I think it takes more
these days to spread the science and the validity of science, or the things you
know that essentially might get lost when you have translations in the news, when
they say one result of science and they could be completely wrong in their interpretation.
As scientists, we have a kind of obligation to make sure that we are reaching our
communities, our audience, or our colleagues or hopefully the people who will
be making decisions or people that you are living with, side by side; I think that
would be important.
By
Carolina Tavares
