SUMMARY NCEAS WORKSHOP MODELLING GROWTH AND FORM OF MARINE SESSILE
ORGANISMS


The topic of this NCEAS workshop will be Modelling Growth and Form of
Marine Sessile Organisms, such as stromatolites, algae, and metazoans
including stony corals, hydrocorals, octocorals, sponges, etc.
Simulation models of growth and form represent an important option,
along with experimental observations, for studying morpholocial
plasticity and the impact of the physical environment on growth and
form of clonal organisms. A better understanding of this morpholocial
plasticity is crucial for biodiversity and bio-monitoring studies. We
believe that research in marine ecology will benefit enormously from
new methods being produced by current research in computational
science. For this workshop, to our knowledge the first on this topic
ever organized, we propose to bring together about 20 scientists from a
wide range of disciplines including developmental biology,
paleontology, ecology, computer science, physics, and mathematics, who
have research interests in modelling the development of algal and
metazoan forms. The aim of the workshop is to discuss a number of
fundamental questions in modelling and simulation of growth and
form of marine sessile organisms, to give a state of the art view of
this field, to exchange methods and ideas and to plan collaborative
research.