FINAL

A MEASO workshop was held at the IMBER Future Oceans 2 Conference on July 20th, led by Jilda Caccavo, Juan Höfer, Stacey McCormack and Rowan Trebilco.

The aims for Thursday’s workshop were to:

1. Explain the structure of the Special Issue to the broader IMBER community (beyond those present in Woking) and encourage participation in core papers (sections 1-5 of the Special Issue), and contribution of additional foundation/extension papers (Section 6 of the Special Issue).
2. Discuss approaches for marine ecosystem assessment, to incorporate into the Context papers.
3. Discuss strategies for generating outputs and summaries to maximise uptake by policy-makers.

1100--1145: MEASO introduction, principles and Special Issue overview (presentations by Rowan, Juan, Jilda, Stacey)

1115--1200: Discussion (breakouts): what should a Marine Ecosystem Assessment look like?

1230--1400: Lunch (and ICED Town Hall)

1400–1420: Intro to afternoon session and info-graphics overview (Rowan and Stacey)

1420--1500Discussion (breakouts): strategies for MEASO outputs

1500--1515: Synthesis and wrap-up

Key overview points from discussions (detailed notes from breakout groups below):

• In summarising what we can say in a 1st MEASO and where the key gaps are, a the 1st MEASO will help guide the work of ICED task teams, and shape future MEASO iterations.
• engage stakeholders from the get-go
• lean on links with previous/other assessments and make them explicit

Notes from 1st breakout: What should a Marine Ecosystem Assessment look like?

Points from Breakout group #1 (Jilda Alicia Caccavo)

Group members: Beth Fulton, Eileen Hofmann, John Klinck

• How do we connect biota to policy relevant issues?
  • Beth Fulton:
    
    • Unclear of the interconnections with EWE models
    • How do we show impacts on biota?
    • Ask stakeholders about scenarios
    • Shipping industry cares about biogeochemistry for the impact on ships – bottom line concerns
    • The MEASO product is for the community, but also science advisors (staffers)
    • Tipping points should be discussed
    • Food web models don’t have the capacity to address these responses
  • Eileen Hofmann
    
    • Disconnect between context and biota (academic) – reporting on what’s been done
      • i.e. in zooplankton chapter, instead of listing vital rates, talk about responses, drivers
    • Structure the biota chapters around the food web scenarios
      • we don’t have one so it’s useful
    • Suggestion to lead authors, send out detailed outline, clear deadlines
  • John Klinck
    
    • Organize biota chapters around human questions
    • Influence of tourists on habitats
    • Influences of small biota on the system
      • Biogeochemistry changes linked to the global system
    • Plastics – macro and micro
    • Policymakers don’t think about divisions of biota in the same way as scientists (not size separated)
    • Multiple sub-authors need to know exactly what they need to send
  • All of group
    • Possible stakeholders
      • Re-declaration of the Reykjavik Conference on Responsible Fisheries in the Marine Ecosystem by FAO in 2020
        • scientific meeting in late November
        • could request similar appraisal of SPM draft as we intend to do with SC-CCAMLR
      • International tourism, COMNAP
        • they will reassess impact of logistics next summer in conjunction with SCAR 2020
    • Context by drivers
      • structure the biota chapter sections by drivers

Points from Breakout group #2 (Juan Höfer)

Group members: Nadine Johnston, Stuart Corney, Angus Atkinson, Tracey Dornan 

• Review other existing reports to compare them with MEASO report and extract possible ideas. Examples below:
  • Report on Arctic ecosystems
  • Chapter on migratory animals on the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (IPCC)
  • Copenhagen Diagnosis (2009) an unofficial update of IPCC AR4 
  • Marine climate change impacts partnership (MCCIP). Uk effort to provide co-ordinated advice on climate change impacts and adaptation around our coast and in our seas.
  • IBPES is a report similar to IPCC reports, but focus on ecosystems. The problem is that IBPES does not include the Southern Ocean. It may be worth to review the last IPBES report
• Who is the intended audience of the MEASO?
  • Global audience or just people with an interest on the Southern Ocean?
  • How are different stakeholders [e.g. CCAMLR, IWC,ACAP and FAO] involved with this initiative?
  • We should include some policymakers and fishing nations in the process
• Include extreme events somewhere within the assessment. Maybe in the context section in the manuscript on global impact drivers.
• Scale of the MEASO
  • MEASO scales may not be directly useful for other bodies. For example, CCAMLR uses smaller scales
  • MEASO scales may be useful for raising awareness about the changes and issues of the Southern Ocean
  • MEASO scales may be useful to generate a set of statements that can be taken up by decision makers
• Suggestion to move the "Challenges" section of the special issue to the front of the special issue, just after the summary for policymakers, in order to increase the number of people reading these key manuscripts.
• Suggestion to include a way to represent changes in the structure of the ecosystem without changing the ecosystems functioning. For example, changes in the diet of a top predator (e.g. penguin) as consequence of the ecosystem shift without affecting the population of the top predator(i.e. penguin abundance).
• There was a general consensus on the common table template proposed for the special issue.

Points from Breakout group #3 (Rowan Trebilco)

Group members: Ricardo Roura, Eva Plaganyi, Eugene Murphy, Rachel Cavanagh, Rowan Trebilco

• Important to clearly articulate where the need for MEASO came from, and where possible, to start with the needs of policy makers and work backward from there
• there is more than one audience and messages need to be tailored appropriately:
  • IPCC type audience
  • policy makers themselves
    • in the past, CCAMLR had written down a list of things they wanted to know, along with CEP... but these were quite high-level.
• Eva noted that Doug Butterworth has been pushing for joint IWC/CCAMLR etc. work, and suggested it might be worth reaching out to him and Andre Punt
• Eva suggested that 2 main things give impact/traction to an assessment:
  • multiple models showing a similar thing
  • bounded uncertainties (e.g. with MSE-type approach)
• Eugene noted that the future ICED task team on governance can direct the community toward the need for MSE
• conceptually mapping out major components/drivers and major uncertainties will provide a framework for future MSE
• Eugene: a key function of MEASO will be guiding the work of future ICED task teams
  • Other points from Eva
    • useful to look at other assessments: status of the arctic is a useful one; and millenium ecosystem assessment
    • can we make statement on social and economic aspects?
    • what are targets and limits for SOE vs other ecosystems?

    • what are the supply chains, markets and vulnerabilities

    • its notable that there is a lack of social scientists and economists in this 1st assessment; if we do future assessments, this stuff needs to be better developed.

Points from Breakout group #4 (Stacey McCormack)

Group members: Devi Veytia, Dieter Wolf-Gladrow, Ching Villanueva, Stacey McCormack ...

Notes from Devi Veytia:

• Section 1.5 - possibly highlight fisheries, how Southern Ocean fisheries are unique and require system-specific management
  • Points raised on CCAMLR/Fisheries:
    • Will the analysis comment on pitfalls of current management strategies/gaps?
    • Would it be possible to make a profit from Southern Ocean fisheries without the current subsidies? Could be useful to involve someone from an economics background to provide this perspective - cost benefit analysis
    • Resolve/comment on the difference between the overall catch limits and the effect fishing has on local scales
    • Necessity of continuing fishing practices in general (locally important but negative impact on ocean vs. small percentage of world's protein source)
    • Summary of the global cost/benefit of fishing in the Southern Ocean
• Points raised on Tourism as a human impact (both positive and negative)
  • Positive: Usefulness of tourist ships as platforms for citizen science, ecosystem services - benefit for influencing public perception of Southern Ocean ecosystems and their importance
  • Negative: Statistics of how many people are taken to Antarctica each year through tourism, emissions etc.
• Points raised on Data availability
  • Maredat 2013 papers highlighted as potential resource
  • Highlighted the importance of transparency in adding information and analysis into the assessment of krill abundance and distribution
• Short discussion on the need for approaches to bring climate change in the Antarctic into public minds (as is currently the case for the Arctic)

Notes from 2nd breakout: What summary elements (graphics, tables etc. can we develop?)

• consistency in visual element will be important across chapters; important to be colour-blind friendly
• network representations may be useful (for mapping out drivers etc)
• ipcc as an example: 2 different colour scales - qualitative vs quantitative
• norwegian colour-coding for salmon pathogens as another useful example
• aim to illustrate thresholds; also bear in mind 
• videos/animations may be useful communication tools: good to lean on parters (like NGOs) to help develop these
  • if developing videos, useful to have something that translates into static images: e.g. 2 end members of a video.

• Ensuring that regional differences are highlighted - approach to ensuring data deficient regions are highlighted
• Frontier for young minds may be a useful resource for developing graphics
• Graphic ideas:
  • Species contributing to the biogeochemical cycle - active and passive transport, unknown contributions, highlights the different species/processes
  • Different habitats created by sea ice, how we can't measure thickness from above, the life within the ice
  • Changes in community structure under scenarios of climate change (shift from krill to salp dominated system, fresh community shift etc.)
  • Coastal paper - interactions with local and global drivers, those that are most prevalent in coastal regions (stations, fishing, freshening) - highlight how it differs from the ocean region

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