  
Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST) Implementation
Plan
Time-line
After the publication
of the ambitious BEST Science Plan, there was a need to formulate a
series of research priorities for moving the research ahead in the most
efficient and productive fashion, and for establishing effective collaborations
between the natural science and a social science components of BEST.
The BEST Planning
Office (PO), working together with the BEST Science Steering Committee
(SSC) and with representatives of government and non-governmental research
and funding organizations, assembled the BEST Implementation Plan. The
objectives of this plan were to: (i) develop a set of priority research
modules to focus the first phase of the BEST field program (2007 - 2010),
(ii) assemble a set of recommendations for the design of an effective
field program to address these priorities, (iii) achieve a comprehensive
perspective of the changing Bering Sea by integrating the field program
with parallel modeling and retrospective analyses components, and (iv)
develop an end-to-end research program capable of investigating the
forcing mechanisms, multiple trophic levels, and ecological / economic
/ social consequences of ecosystem change, from the large scale atmospheric
forcing to the people who depend on the resources of the Bering Sea.
Working through
conference calls, the BEST PO and BEST SSC developed the Implementation
Plan during spring 2005, and presented a draft version to the scientific
community in May 2005, at a BEST Open Implementation Workshop held in
conjunction with held in conjunction with the ESSAS Symposium "Climate
Variability and Sub-Arctic Marine Ecosystems", sponsored by GLOBEC
(GLOBal ocean ECosystems dynamics) and the North Pacific Marine Science
Organization (PICES). This day-long workshop was attended by over 130
participants, who were able to provide input through a variety of means,
including written comments / emails, small break-out groups, large plenary
sessions, and invited / contributed oral presentations. The BEST PO
and BEST SSC reviewed these recommendations and comments at a follow-up
conference call (June 2, 2005) and incorporated the relevant recommendations
into the final version of the Implementation Plan during a two-day meeting
in Seattle (June 13 - 15, 2005). The BEST PO completed the Implementation
Plan revisions during the summer, and delivered the final version to
NSF in September 2005 for use in the BEST Announcement of Opportunity
(AO).
BEST
Implementation Plan Executive Summary
The goal of the
Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST) Program is to develop a fundamental understanding
of how climate change will affect the marine ecosystems of the eastern
Bering Sea, the continued use of its resources, and the economic, social
and cultural sustainability of the people who depend on it.
The BEST program
will bring together physical, biological and fisheries oceanographers,
ecologists, climatologists, archeologists, anthropologists, economists,
and other social scientists in a highly integrated and interdisciplinary
program. The work will draw on regional historical datasets derived
from modern oceanographic programs over the last several decades, longer-term
instrumental and written records, and knowledge of ecological change
recorded by the multigenerational observations of local populations.
BEST will develop the next generation of conceptual and numerical models
needed to link ecological and physical change and provide better strategies
to anticipate and ameliorate climate-induced impacts on subsistence
and commercial resource users.
The study of ecosystem
changes in the eastern Bering Sea will involve the investigation of
a full suite of variables and processes that are linked ecologically
but divided by the research mandates of different agencies and organizations.
The BEST program must therefore be capable of integrating a variety
of complementary research efforts to develop a unified understanding.
Researchers in BEST will need to develop collaborations with scientists
in a number of agencies with different mandates. Collaborations among
scientists funded through NSF, NOAA, NASA, NPRB, BASIS, AOOS, USGS,
and USFWS will be required to accomplish an end-to-end understanding
of the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem and its users. In the face of the
rapid ecosystem changes underway, this understanding is essential to
sustain the rich marine resources of the eastern Bering Sea, and the
people and cultures dependent on their harvest.
 Download
a pdf of the BEST Implementation Plan from the ARCUS web-site.
 Email ARCUS to request a hard
copy of the BEST Science Plan.
Note: If you are using Acrobat Reader version
5.x / 6.x on Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows, you may wish to
download the document by right clicking the link and choosing the "Save
Target As" option. If you have difficulty with the PDF download, please
try these solutions, email webmaster@arcus.org, or call (907)
474-1600.
Funding
The National
Science Foundation organized two competitions to fund BEST research
projects, in 2006 and 2007:
2006 BEST
competition - Arctic Research Opportunities Solicitation: NSF 05-618
- COMPLETED (Link
to full solicitation)
- NSF-Funded
projects (download list)
- Other
related projects
2007
BEST competition - Bering
Ecosystem Study (BEST) Solicitation: NSF 07-533 - COMPLETED (Link
to full solicitation)
- NSF-Funded
projects (download list)
-
NPRB-Funded
projects (download
list)
Research
Cruises
BEST researchers, in partnership
with NOAA and NPRB, will participate in a collaborative research cruise
to the Bering Sea multi-agency cruise onboard the U.S. Coast Guard ice-breaker
Healy.
Link
to the cruise web-site
Last modified: 2007-10-11
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