Grantee:  Dr. Tim Keitt, UT Austin

Contact:  Dr. Tim Keitt (tkeitt at sign gmail.com)

Project Summary:

Scalable infrastructure for modeling marine ecosystem connectivity is currently lacking. Scientists and managers are increasingly interested in planning for regionally cohesive reserve network systems as a corner-stone of marine ecosystem-based management. The product of this project will fill this gap by allowing analysts to perform large-scale connectivity analysis of marine habitats using recent advances in the application of network theory to source-sink population structures. A simple wizard interface will guide analysts through assembling GIS data layers, building a network model and analyzing its properties. Results will be provided as GIS outputs so that they can easily be incorporated into mapping and visualization products.

NAMEM will bring easily accessible, scalable and validated infrastructure for conducting state-of-the-art network analysis in marine ecosystems. Most existing tools focus on mass-balance modeling with some capability for simple spatial scenarios. NAMEM will complement these approaches by bring advanced spatiotemporal analysis tools into the mix. By providing a modular architecture with well define API's, future innovators will be able to integrate various tools in possibly unexpected ways.