The Daily Bulletin

Please join the Great Lakes Center and the Biology Department for the seminar "How Is Your Ecosystem Doing? Developing Scientifically Based Report Cards," presented by William Dennison, professor of marine science and vice president for science applications at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, on Friday, September 30, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. in Technology Building 160. All students, staff, and faculty are welcome.

Seminar Abstract
A basic question asked by scientists, resource managers, policy makers, and interested citizens is simply "How is your ecosystem doing?" When I was asked this question regarding an embayment I had been studying in Australia in the late 1990s, I gathered my graduate students and developed a simple qualitative report card (A-F). Years later, I set about to develop a report card using an established monitoring program. This resulted in the Chesapeake Bay report card, which was incorporated into governance structures and supported restoration targeting. Several other report cards were undertaken, but the largest report card effort was devoted to the extensive Mississippi River basin, and it included various socioeconomic and ecological indicators. Partnering with the World Wildlife Fund, our team is now developing strategies for report card replication and multiplication in a Basin Report Card Initiative. I would like to propose a Great Lakes report card, and will present some preliminary concepts to answer the question "How are the Great Lakes doing?"