Report of the Southeast Trophic Ecology and Ecosystem Modeling Working Group

On December 11-12, 2019, approximately 45 representatives from the NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Southeast Regional Office, NOAA Restoration Center, Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council, Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, regional academic institutions, and non-governmental organizations convened to discuss strategies to inform priority management issues by increasing the application of ecosystem modeling. Through a combination of plenary presentations and discussion, management partners reviewed current priority management needs as the scientific community gave updates on current modeling capacity and data sources. In reviewing the existing databases, modeling approaches, and applications that have been made to date, it was clear that a robust foundation existed and that a number of successes have already resulted from past efforts. The group identified and worked through some of the bottlenecks that have prevented more frequent success in application. This included a lack of communication between practitioners and decision-makers, mismatched timescales between management decisions and model development, and data gaps.