Events

The MAF-WORLD COST Action organised the training school on “Threats to Marine Animal Forests and actions for conservation/restoration” as part of WG3 and WG7 activities. The program comprises three days of training sessions, including field and lab work, and two days of workshops to develop the frameworks and initial drafts of manuscripts.

This 5-day workshop will be held at an idyllic location in Scotland, the Scottish Centre for Ecology and Natural Environment (SCENE). This is a field station which is part of the University of Glasgow (United Kingdom). The workshop will take place between 3 -7 June 2024.

The workshop aims to address the fragmented nature of pre-industrial climate and human impact studies on marine ecosystems by gathering specialists from various disciplines, exchanging training on their methods, assessing the complementarity and compatibility of diverse data, and ultimately drafting a methodological paper on effectively combining these methods for ecosystem modelling.

For MAF-WORLD COST Action 20102, it is a pleasure to announce the training school “Habitat mapping and trophic ecology of Marine Animal Forests” that will be held in Portugal at the Center for Marine Sciences in Faro, on Sept 25th – Oct 1st 2023.

A workshop organised by IAtlantic in collaboration with COST Action MAF WORLD, aims to provide practical guidance on the maintenance of cold-water corals (CWCs) in aquaria, offering an overview of the different aquaria systems, collection methods, feeding and daily care.

The workshop aims to provide participants with an understanding of the ecological and socio-economic significance of MAF organisms. Through this workshop, participants will learn how to utilize the geometric morphometric approach to identify and analyze phenotypic variations in MAF organisms in response to environmental deterioration.

Participants will get an overview of octocorals, focusing on their taxonomy, phylogeny and ecology. This workshop will teach the morphological ID methods and present up-todate molecular genetic approaches relevant to octocoral phylogenetics and species delimitation.

This training experience is about connecting the dots and seeing how each element can complement others to make an engaging history through exhibitions, Citizen science with a real field experience, writing, videos, and social networks within the framework of the Marine Animal Forest COST Action.

Coinciding with the 15th International Coral Reef Symposium in Bremen, the ZMT – Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research welcomes our first Management Committee to set the future activities for the following years and strengthen our networking COST Action.

Assessing Heterotrophy in Marine Animal Forests and its importance in guiding conservation strategy We invite you to assist in the upcoming ONLINE WORKSHOP on Marine Animal Forests (MAFs), that will be held on the 26 & 27 of October. The Workshop will be divided into 3 sessions structured around either heterotrophic or mixotrophic metazoans. This workshop will provide an opportunity to share current knowledge and highlight existing gaps and future directions regarding heterotrophy’s importance to MAFs. During the workshop, we will summarize recent progress and identify research priorities.