2018 International Conference on Assessing Status and Trends of Habitats, Key Species and Ecosystems in the Southern Ocean, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

The program Integrating Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics, which is a partner program of IMBER and SCAR, will be holding a conference on assessing status and trends of habitats, key species and ecosystems in the Southern Ocean in April 2018.  This background paper is an invitation to Members of the SC-CAMLR to participate in working groups on four themes that will be of benefit to SC-CAMLR: (1) Assessments of status and trends in habitats, species and ecosystems, and the causes of change (attribution); (2) Responses of species to changing habitats, including ocean acidification, sea ice and temperature; (3) Modelling and analytical methods to assess status and trends; and (4) Implementation of observing systems to estimate dynamics and change.  These themes aim to facilitate contributions of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean marine science community to: the next assessment by the IPCC and recent initiatives to assess status and trends in global ocean ecosystems; the Southern Ocean Observing System; the SCAR Report on Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment; CEP; SC-CAMLR; and IWC-SC.