"Ecopath 25 years": conference and workshops

In 1984, Dr. Jeffrey Polovina and his colleagues at the National Marine Fisheries Service, Honolulu Laboratory, developed an innovative marine ecosystem model known as Ecopath. Named to convey its focus on ecological pathways, it was the first model to apply a type of statistics called 'path analysis' to the field of marine ecology. The model's simplicity and its ability to accurately identify ecological relationships have revolutionized scientists' ability worldwide to understand complex marine ecosystems. Now, 25 years later, the Ecopath suite of software is recognized as one of NOAA's top ten scientific breakthroughs in the last 200 years. The current approach Ecopath and Ecosim (EwE), developed and promoted by Villy Christensen, Carl Walters and Daniel Pauly is used in over 150 countries for a multitude of uses.

EwE has contributed substantially and in tangible ways towards an ecosystem based management approach of marine resources worldwide. EwE is the first ecosystem level simulation model to be widely and freely accessible. As of October 2008 there were 5,649 registered users in 164 different countries (www.ecopath.org, 27th Oct 2008) and well over 200 publications; making EwE an important modelling approach to explore ecosystem related questions in marine science. Further technical and application details on EwE can be found at www.ecopath.org.

The "Ecopath 25 years: conference and workshops" was aiming to provide an overview of 25 years of progress using this approach in different fields: fisheries management, ecosystem comparisons, spatial analysis, climate impacts, and ecosystem-based management as well as to introduce the new or under development exciting features. It was intended to be an international scientific reunion on ecosystem modelling using the software Ecopath and Ecosim (EwE).

The meeting, that lasted from August 26, 2009 to September 3, 2009, allowed for users from the scientific community, education bodies, members of governmental organizations and NGOs to be given an overview on what has been achieved since Ecopath's inception, and learn about new and exciting features. Key topics during the Ecopath conference were:

• expansion of features to the analysis of fishing policies,
• establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs),
• study of socioeconomic factors of marine exploitation,
• incorporation of climatic drivers in the analysis of marine ecosystems.

Two workshops were also part of the event. The first workshop proposed an introduction to the new version of the software EwE version 6. Following the conference, a series of specialized workshops addressed specific applications of the EwE 6 software.

We hope you had a fruitful stay in Vancouver and a very exciting week at the "Ecopath 25 Years - Conference and Workshops" event!
The organizing committee