All Plenary Sessions will be held in the Grand Ballroom, 3rd Floor of the Convention Center.

Malcolm McCulloch
The Australian National University, Australia
Lessons from the Past
Monday, July 7, 10:00AM

Professor Malcolm McCulloch grew-up in Western Australia where he received undergraduate training in the physical sciences. In 1980 he was awarded a PhD from the Division of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology and then returned to Australia to take-up a Research Fellowship at The Australian National University in the Research School of Earth Sciences.

At ANU he was responsible for establishing a new range of geochemical methods to better understand how the Earth's continental crust and mantle has grown and evolved. For the past decade his research interests have increasingly focussed on the modern part of the geologic record, using isotopic and trace element methods to determine how climate and anthropogenic processes have influenced both past and present environments, with particular emphasis on coral reefs.

Using geochemical proxies preserved in the long-lived (300 to 400 year old) coral skeletons from the Great Barrier Reef he has been able to show how European settlement and associated land-use practices has led to a five to ten fold increase in sediment and nutrient fluxes entering the reef relative to 'natural' levels. This has provided important quantitative evidence to support enhanced National-State protective measures. Using a similar geochemical isotope-based approach his group has also been able to show that the effects of rapidly increasing levels of anthropogenic CO2 are now becoming evident in living corals, reinforcing the concerns about the impact of ocean acidity on coral reef systems. He has also undertaken research on fossil coral reefs, in particular those from the Last Interglacial, where he has demonstrated the realities of an ~4 meter higher sea-levels associated with warmer sea surface temperatures, providing a benchmark for likely future increases. He an Associate Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef studies and has received a number of awards including Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science (2004), the American Geophysical Union (2002) and most recently the Geochemical Society (2008).

Joan Kleypas
National Center for Atmospheric Research, USA
Helping Coral Reefs Through Climate Change Crisis: Mission Possible
Monday, July 7, 2:00PM

Joanie Kleypas is a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research who specializes on the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems. She studied fish ecology toward a Master's degree at the University of South Carolina, and completed her PhD at James Cook University in Australia, working under Professor David Hopley (and alongside Rob van Woesik) on the ecology and geology of the Southern Great Barrier Reef.

For the last 10 years, Joanie's work has focused on two main aspects of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration: global warming and ocean acidification. "Ocean acidification" refers to the progressive, global reduction in seawater pH that results from the ocean's increased uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Joanie was introduced to this concept by Dr. Bob Buddemeier, whose ability to synthesize information from geochemistry, hydrology, biology and paleontology allowed him to forecast the potentially far-reaching effects of this fundamental change on the ocean carbon cycle and biosphere. Building on, Bob's vision, Joanie takes a broadbrush approach to studying how climate change and ocean acidification will affect coral reefs. She works with marine chemists, coral physiologists, ecologists, and geologists to investigate how coral reef ecosystems, and indeed the reef structures themselves, will change over the course of this century. Her work aims to improve our ability to predict which reefs are least vulnerable to future warming and acidification, and thus improve the success of conservation strategies.

Roberto Iglesias-Prieto
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico
Photophysiology, Bleaching, and Adaption
Tuesday, July 8, 8:30AM

Roberto Iglesias-Prieto is the head of the Unidad Académica Puerto Morelos at the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and the Chair of the Mesoamerican Center of Excellence of the GEF/World Bank Coral Reef Targeted Research program.

Born in Mexico City, he received a bachelor's degree in biology and a MSc. in biological oceanography at UNAM. Roberto moved to the University of California Santa Barbara, where he received a PhD in aquatic and population biology. After a year as a post-doctoral fellow at UCSB, Dr. Iglesias-Prieto moved in 1994 to the northern Mexican state of Baja California to take a position as a senior scientist at the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Studies of Ensenada.

Since 1996, Roberto is a research professor at UNAM's laboratory at Puerto Morelos in the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Roberto's main research interest is the photobiology of the symbiotic associations between zooxanthellae and reef-building corals. His work has been focused on the ecological and evolutionary consequences of symbiont specificity in corals, the effects of thermal and light stress on the organization of the photosynthetic apparatus of symbiotic dinoflagellates, and the role of coral skeletons as modulators of the intracellular light environment. In addition to his research interests in coral reefs, Roberto is currently serving as the head of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Council on Coral Reefs for the Mexican government.

Bob Cowen
Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science, USA
Population Connectivity in Coral Reef Systems
Tuesday, July 8, 2:00PM

Robert K. Cowen is the Robert C. Maytag Professor of Ichthyology and Chair of Marine Biology and Fisheries at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. He also holds a joint appointment as Professor in the Department of Biology at UM.

He earned his B.A. at UCSB, M.S. at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and Ph.D. in biological oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He has authored or co-authored over 90 publications on topics ranging from coastal fish ecology and early life history, to fishery oceanography, larval transport and population connectivity. His research has included both a field-intensive empirical and biophysical modeling approach to resolving the mechanisms and the population consequences of larval dispersal. Dr. Cowen is currently serving on the U.S. Ocean Research and Resource Advisory Panel (ORRAP), the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) External Advisory Committee, NOAA/NSF CAMEO Steering Committee, JOI Ocean Observatory Interim Steering Committee, and as CLIOTOP/GLOBEC Early Life History Working Group chair.

His other service activities have included ICCAT Technical Advisor, Marine Reserve Consensus Panel, hosting and participating in various workshops on the topic of marine population connectivity and management of Caribbean coral reefs. Dr. Cowen is also a member of the Connectivity Working Group of the GEF Coral Reef Targeted Research Program.

Drew Harvell
Cornell University, USA
Drivers of Coral Infectious Disease
Wednesday, July 9, 8:30AM

Drew Harvell is a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. She is widely recognized for her work on marine diseases, chairing both the World Bank Targeted Research Program on Coral Disease and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis program on the Ecology of Marine Disease. The current focus of Dr. Harvell's laboratory group is on the ecology and evolution of coral resistance to disease. A subtheme of this work includes evaluating the impacts of a warming climate on coral reef ecosystems. Her analyses and papers have led to the now widespread acceptance that diseases in marine ecosystems are important, particularly in the very climate- sensitive coral reef ecosystems.

Projects in her lab involve a variety of approaches, including field studies, molecular techniques, chemical analyses and mathematical modeling. She has worked for many years on coral reefs in the Mexican Yucatan and Florida Keys and more recently in the Pacific. Her work has been featured in national and international media. Dr. Harvell received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1985. Following NATO and NSF postdoctoral fellowships in 1986, she joined the faculty of Cornell University in 1986. She has been a sabbatical fellow at National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and Vice President of the Society of American Naturalists, is a senior scientist at The Kohala Center and serves on the editorial board of Annual Reviews of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics.

Daniel Pauly
University of British Columbia, Canada
Coral Reef Fisheries: A Re-Assessment of Their Ecological and Socioeconomic Impacts
Wednesday, July 9, 2:00PM

Since 2003, Dr. Pauly has been the Director of Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. He joined UBC as Professor of Fisheries in 1994, after many years at the International Centre for Living Aquatic Resource Management (ICLARM), then in Manila, Philippines. Dr. Pauly authored over 500 scientific articles, book chapters and shorter contributions, and authored or edited 30 books and reports These documents, mainly dedicated to the management of fisheries (including coral reef fisheries), and to ecosystem modeling (including coral reef ecosystems), present concepts, methods and software which are used throughout the world. This applies, notably, to the ecosystem modeling approach incorporated in the Ecopath software (see www.ecopath.org), to FishBase, the online encyclopedia of fishes (see www.fishbase.org), and the global mapping of fisheries trends (see www.seaaroundus.org), all of which are strong support systems for coral reef research.

Two books On the Sex of Fishes and the Gender of Scientist: a Collection of Essays in Fisheries Science (Chapman and Hall, 1994) and Méthodes pour l'évaluation des ressources halieutiques (CépadučsÉditions, 1997) summarize much previous work, as do his articles "Fishing Down Marine Food Webs" (Science, February 6, 1998), and "Toward Sustainability in World Fisheries" (Nature, August 8, 2002). Two other books (In a Perfect Ocean: fisheries and ecosystem in the North Atlantic. Island Press, 2003; and Darwin's Fishes: an encyclopedia of ichthyology, ecology and evolution. Cambridge University Press, 2004) document his current interests. Dr. Pauly, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Science) since 2003, has received numerous awards for this work, notably the Award of Excellence of the American Fisheries Society (2004), the International Cosmos Prize from the Expo '90 Foundation of Japan (2005), and the Volvo Environmental Prize from the Volvo Foundation, Stockholm. Profiles of D. Pauly were published in Science, Nature and The New York Times, among others.

Darwin Medal Lecture
Professor Terry Hughes
Darwin Medal Lecture: Science, Policy and the Future of Coral Reefs
Friday, July 11, 8:30AM

Terry Hughes is the Director of the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, based at James Cook University in Townsville. He grew up in Ireland, where he received his first degree in Zoology at Trinity College Dublin. He received his doctorate in 1984 from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, where his work on the ecology of Jamaican coral reefs was supervised by Jeremy Jackson. From 1984-1990, he was an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara where he began a second strand of research working with Joe Connell on the Great Barrier Reef.

In 1990, Terry moved from California to Australia, where his work was mainly focused on the Great Barrier Reef, and in the Central and Western Pacific. He was awarded a Personal Chair at James Cook University in 2000, and was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences in 2001 in recognition of "a career which has significantly advanced the world's store of scientific knowledge". In 2002 and 2007 he was awarded two 5-year ARC Federation Fellowships, enabling him to work fulltime on research and to establish, in 2005, the Centre for Coral Reef Studies. In 2008, the Centre's membership includes more than 140 PhD students from 24 countries. Terry was formerly an elected member of the ISRS Council, and has served on the editorial Board of Coral Reefs for 10 years as an Advisory, Topic, and Managing Editor. Terry has published over 80 influential scientific papers that have focused mainly on population biology, community ecology, climate change, evolution, biogeography, and reef management. He has led field studies in many countries, including Australia, French Polynesia, Indonesia, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Samoa.

NOAA Administrator Address
Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Thursday, July 10 8:30 - 8:45AM

A native of Philadelphia, Pa., retired Navy Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., is serving as the undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere.as administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in applied mathematics.

Lautenbacher oversees the day-today functions of NOAA, as well as laying out its strategic and operational future. The agency manages an annual budget of $4 billion. The agency includes, and is comprised of, the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Services; National Marine Fisheries Service; National Ocean Service; National Weather Service; Oceanic and Atmospheric Research; Marine and Aviation Operations; and the NOAA Corps, the nation's seventh uniformed service. He directed an extensive review and reorganization of the NOAA corporate structure to meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century. As the NOAA administrator, Lautenbacher spearheaded the first-ever Earth Observation Summit, which hosted ministeriallevel representation from several dozen of the world's nations in Washington July 2003. Through subsequent international summits and working groups, he worked to encourage world scientific and policy leaders to work toward a common goal of building a sustained Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) that would collect and disseminate data, information and models to stakeholders and decision makers for the benefit of all nations individually and the world community collectively. The effort culminated in an agreement for a 10-year implementation plan for GEOSS reached by the 55 member countries of the Group on Earth Observations at the Third Observation Summit held in Brussels February 2005.

In this International Year of the Reef, Lautenbacher is committed to coral reef research, and educating the public about the threats coral reefs face and what we can do to mitigate those threats. Before joining NOAA, Lautenbacher formed his own management consultant business, and worked principally for Technology, Strategies & Alliances Inc. He was president and CEO of the Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education (CORE). This not-for-profit organization has a membership of 76 institutions of higher learning and a mission to increase basic knowledge and public support across the spectrum of ocean sciences. Lautenbacher is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy (Class of 1964), and has won accolades for his performance in a broad range of operational, command and staff positions both ashore and afloat. He retired after 40 years of service in the Navy. His military career was marked by skilled fiscal management and significant improvements in operations through performance- based evaluations of processes. Lautenbacher lives in Northern Virginia with his wife Susan who is a life-long high school and middle school science teacher.

ISRS Presidential Address: Science and Advocacy
Richard B. Aronson President, ISRS
Thursday, July 10, 8:45 - 9:30AM

The worldwide crisis on coral reefs has blurred the distinction between science and advocacy. Objective science is critical to understanding the relative impacts of numerous causal agents. Because policy recommendations will differ depending on which causes exert the greatest influence, scientists must be explicit about when they are acting as advocates rather than conveying scientific results.

Legitimate scientific debate is healthy and in no way diminishes the goal of creating cogent policy, whereas forced idealogical unification is the surest route to disaster. Although science must move forward unfettered by political expediency, the situation is dire enough to warrant continuing action in parallel with continuing research if we are to save coral reefs. The public message from scientists and advocates alike should be positive, suffused with hope, and cast in ethical as well as pragmatic terms.

Rich Aronson, President of the International Society for Reef Studies, grew up in New York City. He received his Bachelors degree in Biological Sciences, summa cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1979 and his Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University in 1985. After completing a NATO postdoctoral fellowship in the UK and postdocs at the Smithsonian Institution and Rutgers University, Rich joined the faculty of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in 1994. He is Senior Marine Scientist at the Sea Lab andProfessor of Marine Sciences at the University of South Alabama. He also holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Rich's research combines ecological and geological approaches to test hypotheses about the historical significance of climate change and disease outbreaks on coral reefs. He served as Vice President of ISRS from 2003 to 2007. In 2009, Rich will move to the Florida Institute of Technology, where he will become Head of Biological Sciences.

NOAA Coral Program Forum: Translating Science into Management

10-11AM Friday, July 11, 2008

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) is a leader in the effort to preserve reef ecosystems. In late 2007, the CRCP solicited an external review to assess the program's effectiveness in achieving its mandates and to provide recommendations for improving its impact and performance. In this forum, senior NOAA officials and members of the science, management and nongovernmental organization communities will hold a panel discussion focused on one of the largest challenges facing effective reef conservation: how to better integrate natural and social science with effective coral reef management. Improving the link between coral reef science and management is major element of the external review's recommendations and the CRCP's plans for the future, and is an issue that transcends the work of any one organization. This forum is an opportunity for the CRCP's current and potential future scientific and management partners, grantees, and stakeholders to interact with NOAA leadership on the direction of coral reef conservation in the United States.

Regional Workshop Special Session

"Regional Workshops on Scientific and Science Information Needs for Coral Reef Management
Facilitator: John W. McManus, Ph.D.

This will be an open, facilitated discussion among those attending. Given the rapid decline of the world's coral reefs, it is vital that decision-makers, stakeholders, and coral reef managers have ready access to the best relevant scientific information available, and that scientists work to provide the answers to questions critical to reef management. As the world's premier gathering of coral reef scientists, the ICRS is an ideal forum for identifying how scientific investigations and information systems can be best focused to facilitate better coral reef management. This session will present the results of two international pre-symposium workshops on these topics, held in the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific respectively. Following a brief presentation of the workshop findings, a facilitated discussion will provide opportunities for session participants to contribute to the identification of priority needs. The results will be made widely available via the Internet to reef scientists, funding agencies, and the public."

ITMEMS Special Session

"Developing Capacities of Coastal and Marine Managers"
Facilitators: Kristian Teleski, PhD & Richard Kenchington, Ph.D.

The goal of the International Tropical Marine Ecosystems Management (ITMEMS) session is to develop the capacities of coastal and marine managers to implement programs and projects that support the conservation and sustainable use of coral reefs and related ecosystems at the local, national, regional and global levels. Integral to this is good coral reef science and the translation of this science into practical actions and strategies for management. The 11th ICRS is an important opportunity to capture the current coral reef and tropical marine ecosystem thinking and science, and feed this into the next ITMEMS. Likewise ITMEMS is an opportunity for managers to make recommendations for input from the scientific community and identify needs that should be filled by science. 11th ICRS delegates are encouraged to consider how their work could contribute to effective coral reef management and how this can be achieved over short time scales for urgent issues (i.e. not constrained by normal publication timelines) and, over longer time scales, to build time series to understand change and management of coral reefs and human pressures that affect them.

SeaWeb/Compass Panel Discussion and Reception

Can This Relationship Be Saved? Why Journalists and Scientists Just Don't Communicate
Tuesday, July 8 6:15-7:30PM Floridian Ballroom D - 3rd Floor
Followed immediately by a reception in the Floridian Ballroom Lobby; 7:30 - 9:00PM.

This evening panel is sure to provide fireworks to end your day. Top scientists and premiere journalists will go head to head. Reporters need plain talk. Scientists need details. Reporters need overviews. Scientists need caveats. You get the idea. Audience participation will be unscripted and decidedly not peer reviewed as we investigate how to make this relationship work. This interactive debate will be co-moderated byJeff Burnside of NBC's WTVJ in Miami and Nancy Baron, COMPASS' Ocean Science Outreach Director. The discussion will be continued afterwards over light hors d'oeuvres and drinks. This will be the place to meet and mingle with journalists attending ICRS.