It has been a great beginning for our MAF-WORLD COST Action. After a successful year, we are ready for the second, with some exciting COST Action activity set.
The foreseen activities planned and organised by the members of the network for the 2022-2023 period will be:
1. Short-Term Scientific Missions
The call will be open from December 20th – 2022, to January 20th, 2023, and the MAF WORLD COST Action will fund eight grants. The applications will be evaluated between January 21st and February 10th, 2023.
Therefore, the time frame to schedule an STSM is from February 12th to September 15th, 2023.
All information will be available on the website once the call is opened.
2. WG5 – Training school (TS)
WG5 and WG2 will organise a 2-week TS at the CCMAR in Faro, Portugal, “Benthic habitat mapping and trophic ecology of Marine Animal Forests (MAFs)” from September 18th to 29th, 2023. Applications will probably be open in March.
Preliminary program:
Day 1+2 (Sept 18th and 19th) – Benthic habitat mapping in the Deep Sea (WG2)
- Fundaments of habitat mapping and data acquisition methods at sea (theoretical)
- Non-invasive methods to map deep-sea benthic communities: Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), Drop cameras, Photogrammetric sledges (theoretical)
- Bringing ex-situ and in situ data together: applying results from ecophysiological research in Species Distribution Models (theoretical)
Day 3-12 (Sept 20th to 29th) – Trophic ecology (WG5)
- Trophic strategies in MAF-forming organisms (theoretical);
- Methods to assess heterotrophy in MAFs (theoretical)
- Experimental assessments of heterotrophy in MAFs (practical)
3. Other MAF WORLD Workshops planned for 2023
- Workshop (WG2): “Husbandry and experimentation with cold-water corals in aquaria”, Edinburgh (UK), May 2023
- Workshop (WG4): “MAF Historical Ecology”, Exeter (UK), June 2023
- Online Workshop (WG8) MAF Citizen Science, May – June 2023 (still to be confirmed). Co-organised with ANERIS & MINKE
4. Other MAF WORLD Training Schools planned for 2023
- Training school (WG7): “Changes in the marine Biota (MAF) of the Black Sea)”, Trabzon (Turkey), April 2023
- Training school (WG2): “Octocoral taxonomy and phylogeny”, Tel Aviv (Israel), July 2023
5. Conference grants for ITC members
Requests can be made starting in February 2023 for conferences held before September 30th, 2023.
We hope you join the activities most aligned with your interests and enjoy learning and networking within this second Year of our MAF WORLD COST Action.
