10th International Shallow Lakes Conference

Theme:

Towards a landscape ecology of shallow lakes

Venue:

Praiamar Hotel & Convention, Ponta Negra Beach, Natal, RN, Brazil

June 21-26th, 2020

Shallow lakes are important freshwater ecosystems worldwide, contributing in important ways to biodiversity and ecosystem services locally as well as at the landscape scale.

In addition to the traditional topics addressed on previous shallow lakes conferences, we take the opportunity of this 10^th meeting to devote special attention to landscape ecology and its importance to understand the structure and function of shallow lakes.

Shallow lakes are embedded in heterogeneous landscapes, and their density and surface area are important determinants of landscape connectivity that influence metapopulation, metacommunity and metaecosystem dynamics.

Landscape ecology focuses on the relationships between spatial pattern and ecological processes, and considers spatial scales that extend well beyond the individual system traditionally studied by ecologists.

From a landscape perspective, conceptual frameworks have been proposed to emphasize the importance of ecosystem boundaries, including their permeability and resistance to flows of energy and materials and to dispersal of organisms, and the challenges of managing systems to maintain biodiversity and ecosystem services at the landscape scale.

Shallow lakes are embedded in a mosaic of terrestrial systems and human influences. This fosters a view of land-water interactions that encompasses the integrated sets of lakes, streams and wetlands that occur in a landscape.

Understanding the implications of the dynamic landscape mosaic for ecosystem processes remains a frontier in both ecosystem and landscape ecology, and is actualized also in the ongoing global change perspective.

Despite the great advances in shallow lake ecology over the last decades, we do not yet sufficiently grasp all consequences of regional processes for the structure and function of shallow lakes. We think there is great opportunity to integrate ecological theories that address both the role of local and spatial processes for population, community and ecosystems dynamics in such lakes, and to consider the implications for their management.

Brazil is an illustrative example, given the extensive large wetlands that the country still hosts. Thus, we invite shallow lake ecologists to join the 10^th International Shallow Lakes Conference in Natal city, Northeast of Brazil, to present their recent work on shallow lake ecology and discuss current challenges and opportunities toward a landscape ecology of shallow lakes.

José Luiz Attayde
President of the Organizing Committee