Marine Mammal Research Team Receives Rollie Lamberson Modelling Award

– OCTOBER 17, 2019

From left, Dr. Amy Veprauskas, Dr. Azmy S. Ackleh, and Dr. Ross Chiquet, recipients of the 2019 Rollie Lamberson Research Award. Not pictured are Dr. Tingting Tang and Dr. Hal Caswell. (Photo credit: Doug Dugas, University of Louisiana at Lafayette photographer, used with permission from Doug Dugas)

Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) congratulates scientists with the LADC-GEMM research consortium on receiving the 2019 Rollie Lamberson Research Award presented at the International Resource Modeling Association conference in Montreal, Canada. This award recognizes the most outstanding published paper of natural resource modeling in the previous two years.

Members of the consortium’s team are recognized for their work on environmental disturbances and whale recovery. The winning paper is titled Sensitivity analysis of the recovery time for a population under the impact of an environmental disturbance, authored by University of Louisiana at Lafayette scientists Azmy S. Ackleh, Ross Chiquet, Tingting Tang (now with San Diego State University), Amy Veprauskas, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist Hal Caswell.

Dr. Azmy S. Ackleh is a Co-Principal Investigator for the LADC-GEMM (Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center – Gulf Ecological Monitoring and Modeling) research consortium. The team pairs acoustical, oceanographic, and visual data with mathematical predictive modeling and integrated data analyses to understand patterns in species distribution and population recovery from manmade or natural disasters.

The prize-wining study complements other LADC-GEMM research that examines how the Deepwater Horizon incident affected large marine mammals. The consortium was in a unique position to study these animals because members had conducted annual acoustic surveys of Gulf of Mexico mammals since 2001.They completed a two-week survey in the oil spill vicinity in 2007 and in 2010 returned there after receiving an NSF Rapid Grant and donated ship time by Greenpeace.

Several stories on the GoMRI website have featured LADC-GEMM research:

• Modeling Study Analyzes Sperm Whale Recovery after Environmental Disturbances
• Study Describes How Autonomous Surface Vehicles Improve Marine Mammal Monitoring
• Grad Student Tang Studies Whale Populations’ Oil Spill Recovery
• Grad Student Mahmud Makes Acoustics and Tracking Marine Mammals “Click
• Tracking Marine Mammal Recovery after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

The Rollie Lamberson Research Award is named for a retired professor of mathematics at Humboldt State University in California. The Resource Modeling Association includes researchers from around the world in the fields of mathematical modeling, natural resources management, and environmental science.

By Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact maggied@ngi.msstate.edu with questions or comments.

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This research was made possible in part by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to the Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center – Gulf Ecological Monitoring and Modeling (LADC-GEMM) consortium.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit https://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

© Copyright 2010-2019 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).