Abstract | Coastal regions, such as the Caspian Sea and the Gulf of Mexico face a multitude of serious environmental challenges, including energy development, overfishing and invasive species. The largest oil discovery in the past 30 years was found in the North Caspian Sea, home to the endemic Caspian Seal and source of more than 90% of the world’s caviar. Coastal ecology is organized by the cross-scale interactions of climate and geology, fluctuating population dynamics and local to global anthropogenic impacts, but there is considerable disagreement concerning the relative importance of local and global controls on ecological processes. This symposium will bring together leading scientists from the Former Soviet Union, Iran, Europe and North America to compare hotly debated aspects of coastal ecology relevant to energy development in the Caspian Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, including changing freshwater, nutrient and pollutant inputs, status of sturgeon and seals, and impacts of Mnemiopsis leidyi. |