Dear MARMAM members, We would like to encourage anyone working in the fields of marine mammal genetics, spatial ecology, or marine spatial planning to attend our full-day workshop "Integrating genetics into the Important Marine Mammal Area (IMMA) Identification Process" at the Biennial in San Francisco on Sunday, December 13th. Please see an overview of the workshop below or the full description on the SMM conference website<https://www.marinemammalscience.org/conference/workshops/>. This workshop will be relatively hands-on with a small number of invited speakers, however if you are interested in presenting please get in touch. You can register for the workshop through the conference website: https://www.marinemammalscience.org/conference/conference-registration/. Please don't hesitate to contact us via email at fkershaw@nrdc.org<mailto:fkershaw@nrdc.org> and hrosenbaum@wcs.org<mailto:hrosenbaum@wcs.org> or by phone at +1-212-727-4564 if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing many of you in December! Best wishes, Francine Kershaw & Howard C. Rosenbaum Integrating genetics into the Important Marine Mammal Area (IMMA) identification process This workshop aims to address the following question: How can we integrate genetic information into spatial planning tools to support the identification of IMMAs? Genetic information has the potential to be highly informative in the application of the criteria employed to identify Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs) in a manner that complements and enhances existing approaches based in biodiversity metrics, habitat maps, satellite telemetry studies, and expert opinion. Therefore, there is a significant need to ensure this data is considered in a systematic way during the IMMA identification process. It is the goal of this workshop to examine how genetic data for marine mammals can be visualized geospatially to support the identification of IMMAs using the marine spatial planning tool SeaSketch. Developing an approach for integrating genetics into spatial planning for marine mammals also poses a series of unique considerations. For example, many species are highly mobile, are often only sampled in parts of their geographic range, and display a range of life history behaviors that may result in complex genetic population patterns. The second part of this workshop will focus on developing recommendations on how these issues can be clearly communicated to planners to ensure that genetic data are correctly interpreted when being used for IMMA identification. Francine Kershaw, Ph.D. Marine Mammals Science Fellow Natural Resources Defense Council 40 W 20th Street New York, NY 10011 USA T 212.727.4564 C 917.450.0994 fkershaw@nrdc.org nrdc.org https://columbia.academia.edu/francinekershaw Howard C. Rosenbaum, Ph.D. Director Ocean Giants Program Global Conservation Programs Wildlife Conservation Society 2300 Southern Blvd. Bronx, New York 10460 USA T 718-220-5184 F 718-364-4275 hrosenbaum@wcs.org<mailto:hrosenbaum@wcs.org> http://www.wcs.org/saving-wildlife/ocean-giants.aspx