FINAL

A workshop for planning the delivery of the first Marine Ecosystem Assessment for the Southern Ocean (MEASO) was hosted by WWF Antarctic Program at WWF Headquarters, Woking, UK on 3-7 June 2019.  Dr. Mike Barrett (WWF-UK, Executive Director of Conservation and Science) welcomed participants to their headquarters, provided some insights into the priorities and directions for WWF, and highlighted the timeliness and importance of work on assessing the state of ecosystems.  He wished everybody well for the week.

Support for the workshop was provided by WWF-UK, the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre.

Introduction

Andrew Constable introduced the workshop on behalf of the co-conveners, Jess Melbourne-Thomas and Andrea Piñones, and the MEASO_Steering Committee.  He gave a presentation (20190603 MEASO Introduction Constable.pdf) on the background to MEASO, its aims overall, and the aims for the week. He also outline the expectations for this MEASO, in particular not to be overly ambitious in the synthesis papers but more to do what can be done within the next six months.  A priority is to develop a useful framework and archive for undertaking a MEASO more easily in the future.  A background paper on the process for developing the report of the first MEASO was made available (MEASO-2019 Report Process and Workshop), along with a recent paper (Brasier et al., 2019) on observations and models to support the first Marine Ecosystem Assessment for the Southern Ocean (MEASO).  Background information and the development of pages on habitats, biota and other assessments were available in the MEASO space in SOKI.

Attendees are listed in Attachment 1 and the Program in Attachment 2 below .

A general discussion was then had on the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) and its content - key points and topics that might be included in the SPM.  The synthesis papers would then be oriented towards synthesising knowledge, gaps, and priorities to support those points.   SOKI would provide the supplementary material to those papers.

Formative discussions on content and presentation of the assessments

Initial discussions on first two days of the workshop focused on how content may be presented under the headings of Habitats, Species and Food-webs.  Other thoughts were considered on:

• questions, requests and tasks from policy bodies and the public, as these would help frame the presentation of materials.  Stakeholders may include more than the usual Antarctic and Southern Ocean stakeholders.
• science being done in other groups and how that might assist the assessments.
• possible common approaches to presenting results and addressing drivers, including tables
• the development of graphics to help communicate key messages to different audiences 
• general instructions for authors participating in the assessments
• the context of the assessments, including background and justification, the Southern Ocean as part of the global system, stressors and their impact pathways, and policy perspectives.

These discussions provided useful background for deciding on the core papers to be delivered into the assessment.  Notes from these discussions are available to workshop participants and MEASO authors.  These provide example tables and presentation that could be used in common across papers.

Discussions on papers for the special issue

The last three days of the workshop focused on how to deliver papers to a special issue of Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (co-listed in Frontiers in Marine Science).

It was decided to have five sections of core papers and a section for contributed papers.  Authors would aim to submit the core papers by the end of 2019.  Contributed papers will need to be approved by the Steering Committee to be accepted for submission.  They would have the same submission deadline.  The following papers were agreed to be the core papers:

Section 1. Context

1-1: Marine Ecosystem Assessments and the Southern Ocean

1-2: Southern Ocean ecosystems as part of the global system

1-3: Biological data and their availability for a marine ecosystem assessment for the Southern Ocean

1-4: Global drivers on Southern Ocean ecosystems: changing physical environments in an Earth system

1-5: Local drivers on Southern Ocean ecosystems: human activities, policy implications and strategies

Section 2. Biota

2-1: Changing biogeochemistry of the Southern Ocean and its ecosystem implications

2-2: Responses of Southern Ocean seafloor habitats and communities to global environmental changes

2-3: Evidence for the impact of climate change on primary producers in the Southern Ocean

2-4: Status, change and futures of zooplankton and krill in the Southern Ocean

2-5: Productivity and change in fish and squid in the Southern Ocean

2-6: Top predators in the Southern Ocean

Section 3. Food webs

3-1: Spatial variation in Southern Ocean food webs: testing potential consequences of future stressors using modeled press perturbations

3-2: Southern Ocean food webs: prognoses, future priorities and opportunities for policy makers

Section 4. Syntheses: Challenges for policy makers

4-1: What will happen to Southern Ocean ecosystem services in the 21st century?

4-2: Changing distributions of habitats in the Southern Ocean: implications for science and management

4-3: Southern Ocean Sentinels: sustained observing of ecosystem change

4-4: What is expected for coastal and shelf ecosystems and their role in the Southern Ocean by 2100?

Section 5. Lessons, gaps and priorities from MEASO-I

Contributed papers including other ecosystem assessments and how their methods may help future MEASOs

5-1: Conclusions from across the papers, along with overarching gaps and priorities for the future

Section 6. Foundations and Extensions of MEASO

Contributed specialist research papers from the MEASO community 

Additional information

Guiding notes were developed for each paper.  In particular, some general guidance was developed on the following:

1. Content
   1. language style
   2. use of supplementary material and reference to SOKI materials
   3. the outline for biota papers
      1. introduction
      2. methods and tools
      3. biology, drivers and functional relationships
      4. historical period to the present
      5. prognoses for the future
      6. conclusions for policy makers, including summary tables in a similar style
   4. infographics
   5. a summary for policy makers
2. Glossary and list of acronyms
3. Principles of involvement
4. Referencing styles

Attachment 1: Workshop Attendees

⁺ Monday only

^* Online

Attachment 2: Program

The program was oriented around small group discussions with opportunities for feedback and cross-group discussions.