Dr. Jason Link is the Senior Scientist for Ecological Research at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He is conducting research and coordinating activities of NOAA Fisheries’ science support for effective ecosystem-based management. He is responsible for the creation of approaches and models that support development of ecosystem-based fisheries management plans throughout the agency. A key element of Dr. Link’s work is the development of the tools and approaches that will allow NOAA Fisheries to deal with the impacts of climate change on our marine trust species.
Prof. Dr. Herman Hummel is project manager at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, and professor in Estuarine Ecophysiology at the Institute of Oceanography of the University of Gdansk, Poland. His specific aim is to understand the relation between fluctuations in environmental factors (salinity, tide, food, degree of pollution) and the genetics, physiology and ecology (biodiversity, distribution, biomass, growth, condition, reproduction, reserve constituents) of coastal and estuarine zoomacrobenthos. An important issue is to what degree benthic animals, already living under extreme conditions, are sensitive to additional changes in their environment.
Prof. Adriaan Rijnsdorp is a fisheries biologist since 1980, working at Wageningen Marine Research. His main research interest is focused on the population biology of exploited (flat-) fish species, the ecosystem effects of fishing, the dynamics of fishing fleets and the history and fishing. He is a professor of “Sustainable Fisheries Management” at the Wageningen University, with the recent research being focused on trawling impacts on the benthic ecosystem.