2016 INCISE Symposium

The INCISE 2016 symposium was held in Victoria, British Colombia.

The meeting was a great success (as seen by all the smiling faces!), with very interesting presentations and keynote talks on all aspects of submarine canyon research. 

INCISE Working Groups

Working Group 1: Canyon processes in space and time

WG coordinator: Aaron Micallef 

Present at INCISE2014 discussion: Aaron Micallef, Nathalie Valette, Stephen Thomas, Domenico Ridente, Albert Palanques, Claire Millet, Kainam Mao, Jenny Gales , Rafael Fonseca, Tim Collart, Gareth Carter, Maria Azpiroz, Anita

Present at INCISE2016 discussion:  Albert Palanques, Silvia Ceramicola, Will Symons, Charlie Paull, Gareth Carter, Idalia Machuca, Tim Duda, James Liu, David Amblas, Katie Coble, Jingping Xu, Andrea Ogston, Susan Allen, Karina Ramos-Musalem, Blair Greenan, Cooper Stacey, Alexandre Normandeau, Madeileine Hamann, Steve Mihaly, Gordon Zhang, Esther Sumner

Discussion topics:

  • What are the spatial and temporal scales of canyons forms and processes? How do they relate across scales?
  • Do canyons mostly form through frequent, small scale processes or through rare, large-scale catastrophic events? Or both?
  • How do the above correlate with biological variation and spatial distribution of biodiversity?

Working Group 2: Patterns in submarine canyons: role of scale and heterogeneity

WG coordinator: Steve Ross  

Present at INCISE2014 discussion: Steve Ross, Claudio Lo Iacono, Marie-Claire Fabri, Tahmeena Aslam, Tim Shank, Laetitia Gunton, Sara Roman, Fabio Matos, Martina Pierdomenico, Katleen Robert, Craig Robertson, Andrew Davies

Present at INCISE2016 discussion: Claudio Lo Iacono (chair), Fabio Matos (rapporteur), Gary Green, Laetitia Gunton (taking notes), Natalie Valette-Silver, Kevin Power, Neus Campanà, Chih-Lin Wei, Marie-Claire Fabri, Pauline Chauvet

Discussion topics:

  • Can we quantify heterogeneity in canyons and does it vary between canyons?
  • What causes the patterns in canyon communities and is there a universal community?
  • Why is there not more physical data?  Is this what is most needed?
  • What data do we need now?  Most important?
  • What processes control patterns?
  • How similar are canyons across a gradient?
  • How much do canyons influence an area on the larger scale?
  • Are “active” canyons more/less biodiverse than “passive” ones?

Outputs:

Bibliography on submarine canyon research, compiled by F. Matos, S. Ross and the WG2 participants. Will be updated regularly. Download the database (version August 2017): Ross, Steve W; Matos, Fábio L; Lo Iacono, Claudio; Fabri, Marie-Claire; Aslam, Tahmeena; Shank, Timothy; Gunton, Laetitia; Roman, Sara; Pierdomenico, Martina; Robert, Katleen; Robertson, Craig; Davies, Andrew; Amaro, Teresa; Cunha, Marina R; Almeida, Mariana (2017). A bibliographic compilation of literature and related metadata concerning global submarine canyon research, Mendeley Data, v1. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/kympfxbcwm.1

Working Group 3: Submarine canyon conservation

WG coordinators: Jaime Davies, Ashley Rowden

Present at INCISE2014 discussion: Heather Stewart, Martha Nizinski, Tom Munroe, Khaira Ismail, Kerry Howell, Ulla Fernandez-Arcaya, Florence Sanchez, Jeremy Potter, Lenaick Menot, Pere Puig, Peter Harris, Ashley Rowden

Present at INCISE2016 discussion: Jaime Davies, Peter Harris (Chairs), Pere Puig, Andrew Eggett, Derek Fenton, Hilary Moors-Murphy, Teresa Amaro, Martina Pierdomenico, Dwight Owens, Natalie Vallette-Silver

Discussion topics:

  • Why protect canyons?
  • What are the threats to canyon ecosystems?
  • Is there interest in canyon conservation?
  • What are the management issues?
  • What science is required for canyon conservation?

Outputs:

Review paper on the ecological role of submarine canyons and their need for conservation: Fernandez-Arcaya, U., Ramirez-Llodra, E., Aguzzi, J., Allcock, A.L., Davies, J.S., Dissanayake, A., Harris, P., Howell, K., Huvenne, V.A., Ismail, K., Macmillan-Lawler, M., Martin, J., Menot, L., Nizinski, M., Puig, P., Rowden, A., Sanchez, F., Van den Beld, I., (2017). Ecological role of submarine canyons and need for canyon conservation: a review. Frontiers in Marine Science, 4,5  doi:10.3389/fmars.2017.00005.

Working Group 4: New ways to study submarine canyons

WG Coordinators: Fabio De Leo, Veerle Huvenne

Present at INCISE2014 discussion: Alan Jamieson, Furu Mienis, Teresa Amaro, Rob Hall, Veerle Huvenne, Fabio De Leo, Elisabeth Lobecker, Gerard Duineveld

Present at INCISE2016 discussion: Fabio De Leo, Veerle Huvenne (chairs), Martin Scherwath (rapporteur), Anna Sanchez, Craig Smith, Nadine Le Bris, Kevin Power, Andy Wheeler, Katleen Robert, Damianos Chatzievangelou

Discussion topics:

  • What is common to all canyon research?
  • What is a wish list in terms of processes that need to be observed and measured by all?
  • How to make sure our results are comparable with other studies?
  • Forever returning question: study multiple canyons (different characteristics: shelf-incise x blind, small x large, etc) that cover a multitude of processes or select two representative canyons and target for long-term studies?
  • What would be the possible minimal (and ideal) instrumentation and sampling effort needed to describe canyon processes with robust statistical power?

Outputs:

Overview paper summarising the current knowledge on the Whittard Canyon system: Amaro,T., Huvenne, V.A.I., Allcock, A.L.,Aslam, T., Davies, J.S., Danovaro, R., De Stigter, H.C., Duineveld, G.C.A.,Gambi, C., Gooday, A.J., Gunton, L.M., Hall, R., Howell, K.L., Ingels, J.,Kiriakoulakis, K., Kershaw, C.E., Lavaleye, M.S.S., Robert, K., Stewart, H.,Van Rooij, D., White, M., Wilson, A.M., (2016). The Whittard Canyon – a case study of submarine canyon processes. Progress in Oceanography, 146, 38-57.