CCAMLR

WG-EMM has a broad agenda for discussions in 2013, including the following items related to feedback management: “review of spatial and temporal structure in the ecosystem in which the current Area 48 fishery operates” and “development of agreed decision-making mechanisms for the candidate feedback management approaches”. The British Antarctic Survey Ecosystems programme and its predecessors have been studying the structure and operation of this ecosystem for several decades. Some of this work has focused on the management and monitoring of this ecosystem. These programmes have therefore generated numerous publications relevant to the WG-EMM agenda. The current document lists selected relevant publications from 2009 to 2013, copies of which will be available from members of the UK delegation during the 2013 WG-EMM meeting.
 

Antarctic krill is an obligate cold water species, an increasingly important fishery resource and a major prey item for many fish, birds and mammals in the Southern Ocean. The fishery and the summer foraging sites of many of these predators are concentrated between 0° and 90°W. Parts of this sector have experienced recent localised sea surface warming of up to 0.2°C     per decade, and projections suggest that further widespread warming of 0.27° to 1.08°C will occur by the late 21st century. We used a statistical model linking Antarctic krill growth to temperature and chlorophyll concentration to assess the influence of projected warming on Antarctic krill habitat quality. The results divide the sector into two zones: A band around the Antarctic Circumpolar Current in which habitat quality is particularly vulnerable to warming; and a southern area which is relatively insensitive. Our analysis suggests that the direct effects of warming could reduce the area of growth habitat by up to 20%. The reduction in growth habitat within the range of predators, such as Antarctic fur seals, foraging from breeding sites on South Georgia could be up to 55%, and the habitat’s ability to support Antarctic krill biomass production within this range could be reduced by up to 68%. Sensitivity analysis suggests that a 50% change in summer chlorophyll concentration could have a more significant effect on Antarctic krill habitat than the direct effects of warming. A reduction in primary production could lead to further habitat degradation but even a 50% increase in chlorophyll would not completely negate the degradation of habitat available to predators. While there is considerable uncertainty in these projections, they provide strong and specific evidence that climate change poses a threat to Antarctic krill growth habitat and consequently to Southern Ocean biodiversity and ecosystem services.

As part of its long-term goal, ICED encourages the rescue and integration of existing data sets to enable investigation of long-term, large-scale ecosystem dynamics across the Southern Ocean. Historical data sets have a particular value in providing ‘baseline’ physical and biological data, against which we can assess current and future dynamics of ecosystems under scenarios of climate and anthropogenic-induced change. Such information can be used to underpin sustainable management strategies. We give an example of an historical data rescue project that is being conducted by ICED scientists at the British Antarctic Survey, centred on the first comprehensive oceanographic research campaign in the Southern Ocean, the Discovery Investigations (1925-1951). ICED is keen to work with CCAMLR to determine how best to make use of the resulting datasets and scientific outputs. ICED also sees great value in working alongside CCAMLR scientists to identify other relevant datasets that require rescue and integration to aid monitoring and management of Southern Ocean ecosystems. We invite data holders to supply summaries of relevant data sets which we will collate in an open access document. This document should assist the efforts of data holders and the wider community to raise awareness and develop strategies to make data available for analysis.
 

In late 2012 SCAR, BirdLife and BAS developed a successful proposal (to the UK Darwin Plus Fund) to build an integrated database that would facilitate the analysis of penguin tracking data. The database will have a web-based user interface that will allow data holders to submit data and attach a range of access levels; access may be granted only to the data holder, to a wider group, or to a general public domain. A penguin database (built along analogous lines and interoperable with the BirdLife Global Procellariiform Tracking Database) will allow spatial analyses to be undertaken that will help inform a variety of CCAMLR analyses, including work on the development of a variety of feedback management approaches for the krill fishery, and work on the spatial planning processes needed for identifying candidate CCAMLR MPAs.

Southern ocean processes are intimately linked to some of the most pressing challenges faced by society today: climate change, ocean acidification and the sustainable management of marine resources. To address these challenges we need to improve our understanding of the natural causes and consequences of Southern Ocean change. Sustained observations, which can only be large enough and maintained through international collaboration, will enable us to measure the baseline and future trends in the distribution and function of the ecosystem. The Southern Ocean Network of Acoustics (SONA) represents a group of scientific institutes and industrial partners who have united to measure an under-sampled component of the ecosystem – the mid-trophic level, to agree common standards and protocols for data collection and processing with a view to provide that data on an open access basis.

Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) are a key species in Southern Ocean ecosystems, maintaining very large numbers of predators, and fluctuations in their abundance can affect the overall structure and functioning of the ecosystems. The inter-annual variability in the abundance and biomass of krill was examined using a 15 year time series of acoustic observations undertaken in the Western Core Box (WCB) survey area to the north of South Georgia, Southern Ocean. Krill targets were identified in acoustic data using a multi-frequency identification window and converted to krill density using the Stochastic Distorted Wave Born Approximation (SDWBA) target strength model. The density of krill within 500 m resets ranged several orders of magnitude (0 to 10 000 gm^-2) and its distribution was highly skewed with many zero observations. Within each survey the mean krill density was significantly correlated with the top 7% of the maximum reset densities observed. Hence, only the densest krill swarms detected in any one year were driving the mean krill density estimates for the WCB in that year. WCB krill density (µ, mean density for the area) showed several years of moderate to high values (µ > 30 gm^-2) interspersed with years (1999-2000, 2004, 2009-2010) of very low density (µ < 30 gm^-2).
 

The ICED programme is investigating how climate change might impact Southern Ocean ecosystems in order to help inform management of Southern Ocean fisheries. ICED will convene a workshop and conference session in the near future in order to address these issues. The theme of the November 2013 workshop is “Southern Ocean food webs and scenarios of change”, and that of the June 2014 conference session is “Detecting, projecting and managing the impacts of change in Southern Ocean ecosystems”. We encourage scientists that contribute to CCAMLR to participate in these activities with a view to improving the basis for future monitoring and management of Southern Ocean ecosystems.

Antarctic krill fisheries have the potential to be in the top 10 fisheries of the world in terms of biomass production. The expansion of the fishery from current levels appears inevitable given the demand for protein and the efficiencies now being developed in the fishery.  CCAMLR is developing a feedback management procedure for these fisheries. Implementation of such a feedback management approach requires an appropriate level of understanding of (i) the structure, function and change of the Antarctic marine ecosystem, (ii) the possible interactions of the fishery with the ecosystem, and (iii) the types of data that can be realistically obtained and monitored on the productivity of the ecosystem and the impacts that fishing may have on the ecosystem.  WG-EMM last reviewed these in workshops between 2002-2004.  Since that time, there have been shifts in the behaviour and methods of the krill fishery enabling expansion, further research in a number of international programs and recognition of substantial change occurring in Antarctic marine ecosystems, all of which are likely to continue.  Currently, there remain a number of major gaps in our understanding of the basic biology and dynamics of krill populations and of other important food web connections. These are major elements of the ICED programme (www.iced.ac.uk).  Here we report on planned and proposed ICED activities that are relevant to krill that will be of interest to CCAMLR scientists and suggest that development of future joint activities would be of value to both the CCAMLR and ICED communities.  We invite CCAMLR engagement in these planned ICED activities, particularly to help these activities target the critical problems being addressed by CCAMLR and to help CCAMLR benefit in the long term from the scientific community involved in ICED.
 

In this paper we provide a brief summary of new plans for the study of penguin populations and associated population processes over the coming years. We envisage that our studies will provide new and up-to-date information about penguin population sizes and trends, and information about penguin survival, demography and phenology. We describe the range of new methodologies that we will employed, including digital aerial survey from manned and remote-controlled platforms, satellite remote sensing, automated individual recognition and weighing, and time-lapse camera and automated image analysis. These studies will inform our understanding of krill-eating penguins and have relevance to the development of various potential feedback management approaches for the krill fishery in the southwest Atlantic.
 

In this paper we provide a brief history that describes the development of management plans and research and monitoring plans for CCAMLR MPAs. We develop a worked example of the management plan, research and monitoring plan and threats analysis for the South Orkney Islands southern shelf MPA which falls within CCAMLR MPA Planning Domain 1. We suggest that this CCAMLR MPA Report for the South Orkney Islands could form the basis for the MPA Report for CCAMLR MPA Planning Domain 1.

We propose that others that have appropriate data and expertise might help develop the MPA Report, so that it delivers the information necessary for CCAMLR’s planning purposes, including the identification of other spatial planning measures close to the South Orkney Islands, and eventually the wider MPA Planning Domain 1.

The paper notes that under Article II, CCAMLR is obliged to protect and conserve the marine ecosystem whilst also considering rational use. Consequently, the paper recognises that a good way to develop spatial protection measures is through the appropriate combination of scientific data and fisheries data derived from a range of sources and from a range of contributors.