The NSF-funded Research Coordination Network (RCN) project, 'Evaluating the impacts of a changing ocean on management and ecology of infectious marine disease', is hosting a series of workshops that address aspects of marine diseases. This workshop, 'Marine Disease Modeling and Transmission', the fourth in this series, is designed to evaluate and implement approaches for modeling marine diseases, with emphasis on disease transmission processes.

The workshop will focus on withering syndrome in abalone and its transmission. The objective of the workshop is to engage participants in the development, implementation and evaluation of a model that will simulate abalone population dynamics, the effects of withering syndrome, and transmission of withering syndrome. The model will use data sets available from the literature and will be applied to abalone disease along the US west coast. Workshop participants are encouraged to bring relevant data sets, if available.

The workshop will result in development of a model that can be used for many applications, with workshop attendees trained to use it. There is also an opportunity to develop a special issue of Frontiers Research Topics from the workshop results. This will be discussed at the workshop.