Connie 2.0
Demonstration of Connie 2.0 by Scott Condie of CSIRO (December 14/15, 2009). Characterizing connectivity patterns in the marine environment provides a range of benefits for resource management and conservation including helping to design more effective marine reserves; improving risk assessment for marine contaminants and invasive species; and increasing understanding of variability in the recruitment of key species (e.g. commercial and keystone species). Realized dispersal is expensive and difficult to measure, but connectivity can also be predicted from an understanding of relevant oceanographic processes. Connie is an online tool for exploring marine connectivity patterns throughout the Indo-Pacific, Australasian, and adjacent Southern Ocean. It uses Bluelink Reanalysis estimates of ocean currents to allow users to: (a) estimate connectivity at arbitrary time and space scales (limited only by the resolution and coverage of the available oceanographic information) and (b) incorporate a range of common biological behaviors that may influence transport (e.g. vertical migration, horizontal swimming). It also provides a range of options for representing statistical summaries of connectivity patterns and can help identify improved strategies for representing connectivity patterns in population dynamics models, ecosystem models, and reserve design tools. The original version of Connie can be accessed at www.per.marine.csiro.au/aus-connie/quickGuide.html.