1.WORKSHOP REVIEW
1.1 Introduction/overview
Purpose/objectives of the workshop
The CODENET network is rather large, it includes 8 teams, most of
these involve more than one institution, and we have many other actively
interested colleagues. So effective organisation has always been a
challenge and annual workshops are an essential part of our plans. This
first workshop was especially important since it was the first
opportunity for all the participants to get together, co-ordinate their
activities and turn a set of good intentions into active collaborations
and research programs.
Venue
Fortunately we have an exceptional venue for workshops, in the
Chateau de Blagnac near Bordeaux in France. The chateau overlooks the
Dordogne and is well away from any main roads so although the main
sessions have to be held indoors, workshop sessions, coffee breaks and
informal discussions inevitably occur mostly outside on the terrace or
lawn. GEM (Global Emiliania Modelling) workshops have been held here
almost every year since 1991 so the chateau is familiar to many
coccolithophorid workers.
Participation
Some twenty eight scientists attended the workshop including all
seven young visiting researchers (YVRs), almost all the
scientists-in-charge and one or two other representatives from most
teams. Extra participants from outside the main research teams included:
Karl-Heinz Baumann (Bremen), Christian Samtleben (Kiel), Simonetta
Monechi (Firenze), and Marco Pozzi (Firenze). In terms of nationality the
representation was 6 Dutch, 6 Germans, 4 Italians, 3 Spanish, 3 French,
and 2 each for Swiss, Portuguese and English. In addition to this nicely
cosmopolitan balance there was a wide range of academic disciplines, a
broad spread of research experience and a reasonable male : female
balance (17:11).
CODENET review and planning
The workshop was planned to lead logically from review of background
science objectives and intended research to planning sessions. It started
with an introductory talk on the network as a whole by Jeremy young,
including a reminder of its four-dimensional structure with 6 key taxa
being studied by 8 research teams, through 14 separate sub-projects or
Research Tasks, aiming to answer fundamental questions in 3 work areas.
Mario Cachão, then reviewed recruitment of YVRs, and outlined the
collaborations they planned.
The scientific sessions started with review talks on the six selected
taxa, outlining their special features, the state of existing knowledge,
and the main foci for our research on them. After this each of the
research teams gave talks, mostly by the YVRs, on their research plans
focussing on particular research tasks. These talks gave a rather
heterogeneous overview of the research tasks, so in addition to extended
abstracts from the talks I have given below summary notes on activity in
each of the research tasks.
The review talks, a training session and invited research talks occupied
the first two days of the workshop. On the third day the organisation of
the network was reviewed relative to its objectives in the three work
areas: Evolutionary Biodiversity (Jeremy Young); Microevolution and
Species Level Variation (Hans Thierstein); Coccolithophorid Ecology
(Marta Estrada and Patrizia Ziveri). This session provided an effective
reminder of the unique potential of the network, but also highlighted the
rather ambitious nature of the project and the need to co-ordinate
activities if it is to get close to achieving its objectives.
The session was followed by an unscheduled workshop of the YVRs and other
involved post docs, to plan the main workshop sessions the next day. They
decided: (1) That planning should focus on identification of core sample
sets for common study, and; (2) that excluding the "senior scientists"
produced far more effective group discussions. So, on the final day the
senior scientists had a workshop on the more bureaucratic aspects of
network organisation, whilst the post docs planned the science and
plotted new collaborations. The two groups then reconvened for a final
plenary session where it was generally agreed that the network was now in
an excellent shape for providing interesting training through research
experience and in a pretty good shape for progressing toward its
scientific objectives.
Scientific presentations
Open sessions for research presentations directly related to the
CODENET program were scheduled at intervals through the workshop -
providing welcome interludes of hard science. Christian Samtleben (Kiel)
described his detailed morphometric study of Gephyrocapsa evolution
through the Pleistocene. Hans Thierstein gave an overview of major time
series studies of nannoplankton assemblages from Hawai and Bermuda
carried out by Mara Cortes and Ali Haidar respectively. Hanno Kinkel
(NIOZ) discussed comparison of estimates of coccolithophorid
palaeoproductivity from organic biomarker and coccolith accumulation
rates. Alberto Garcia Saez (AWI/Erlangen) discussed the latest
reconstructions of haptophyte phylogeny based on 18S rRNA and RUBISCO.
Volker Huss (Erlangen) explained how Ochrosphaera has a plastid genome an
order of magnitude larger than in other algae or plants and outlined
plans to investigate whether this was common feature of haptophytes.
Karl-Heinz Baumann (Bremen) presented a wealth of data on Coccolithus
pelagicus morphology variation, and especially evidence for a strongly
bimodal size distribution in modern populations.
Training sessions
Two master class training sessions were held during the workshop. The
first was on Algal Biology and Culturing. Chantal Billard (Caen) reviewed
the characteristic features of haptophyte algae relative other algae and
Franco Novarino (NHM) described the practicalities of isolation and
culturing of live microalgae. The second was on Organic Biomarker
Geochemistry. Gerard Versteegh and Hanno Kinkel (NIOZ) gave an overview
of the methods and objectives of this large and rapidly developing field
with a special emphasis on the uk37 paleotemperature index based on the
alkenones produced by coccolithophorids.
These sessions provided an opportunity for the wide range of different
scientists involved in the program to gain detailed insight into key
areas of science for the project. They proved very successful and
sessions on cladistic analysis of phylogenetic data and molecular biology
are provisionally scheduled for next year's workshop.
Thanks
The workshop could not have happened without the hospitality of Jan
and Dorine. Hanno, Nellie and Waldi not only did a perfect job of helping
Dorine with the domestic side of the meeting but also made everyone feel
specially welcome and at home. On the scientific side the VU team of Jan,
Sandra and Patrizia ensured that the workshop was smoothly organised for
the maximum benefit of all the other teams. As usual no-one left Blagnac
without looking forward to returning.