The physical marine environment around the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is rapidly changing and we need to understand the impact on marine ecosystems. A diverse community of killer whales (Orcinus orca; Types B1, B2 and A) are important top predators around the AP, but there are currently no data on their abundance or trends. Most research to date has focused on the pagophilic Type B killer whales that are phenotypically, genetically and culturally distinct and rarely sighted away from Antarctica. In contrast, less is known about the Type A killer whales that are more typical in appearance to killer whales sighted in other parts of the world.  Sightings of Type A around the AP have been increasing in recent years, including observations of predation on a number of whale and pinniped species. Here we integrate satellite telemetry (n = 10 tags) and photo-identifications (13 years, 15,828 photographs) collected between austral summers 2005/06 to 2016/17 to describe the movement patterns of these whales and estimate their abundance trends in the coastal waters around the AP. Whales tagged off the western AP typically ranged widely on the continental shelf in the austral summers, but also moved over long distances into the Southern Ocean and beyond into the South Atlantic and South Pacific Oceans (up to 3048 km from tagging site). Photographic re-sightings of the same whales were common across years (up to 13 years), and a Bayesian mark-recapture analysis estimated that the average annual abundance has increased significantly in recent years from a low of 92 (95% probability interval = 52-147) to a high of 148 (95% PI = 101-226). This increase may be a response to changing ice conditions that increased access to new feeding areas, perhaps combined with increasing local abundance of key prey species such as southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina).

Conservation objects comprise different extensions and are distributed differently in Doman 1; while some of them occupy very small areas –such as polynyas– others extend over larger areas -like benthic ecoregions. In general, it is complicated to protect all spatial features especiallywhen their distribution is complex. The Domain 1 MPA model was generated based on priority areas for conservation and taking into consideration the krill fishery and climate change. The model achieved the targets for almost 90% of the conservation objects, including the protection for all the areas considered to be important for birds, mammals and fishes. The proposed MPA fulfils the level of protection agreed by the international community for Domain 1. Substantial reductions of this MPA could potentially compromise - at least at some degree – the protection of the conservation objectives established by the Convention for the designation of MPA in Antarctica.

We provide a brief update on the progress of our project “Establishing a CEMP Camera Network in Subarea 48.1”. The project was initiated with support from the CEMP Special Fund in 2014/15. The project is now fully operational.  In 2016/17 data were recovered from 50 cameras covering 3 species (Adélie, gentoo, and chinstrap) of penguins throughout the range of the camera network. Data summaries indicate variation in phenological timing within species across sites with relatively high reproductive success for all species across sites.  Progress on validation work continues and a manuscript for publication is currently in preparation. The cameras in the network remain in deployment and will contribute reproductive success and phenology data to the CEMP data base annually. We also note the Chile intends to extend the camera network with 3 new installations.

The Ross Sea region MPA Research and Monitoring Plan Workshop (WS-RMP) was held at the Palazzo Farnesina (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, MAECI) in Rome from 26–28 April 2017.

The purpose of the workshop was to develop a draft research and monitoring plan (RMP) for the Ross Sea region MPA. The RMP is required to be introduced to CCAMLR at the annual meetings of the Scientific Committee and Commission later this year, prior to the Ross Sea Region MPA’s implementation in December 2017.

Following the workshop, the conveners submitted the draft research and monitoring plan to the Ross Sea MPA implementation e-group. This was then submitted to the WG-SAM for discussion. To date, three sets of comments have been submitted to either the e-group or to the conveners directly. These comments described at the end of this document.

Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba Dana) is a key species in the Southern Ocean ecosystems and supports different levels of predators. It is also an important economic species for Antarctic fisheries. In this paper, using the multi-frequency acoustic data and the fishery data, the relationship between the acoustic scattering coefficient of krill swarms and catch, catch per unit effort (CPUE), catch per unit fishing area (CPUA) were studied for better understanding the feasibility of assessing krill abundance based on fishery data. The results showed that average catch of daytime trawls was significantly higher than average catch of night trawls. The average thickness of krill swarm in the daytime was thinner than that at night. At the depth of over 100 m, the average NASC during the daytime is higher than that at night, with the maximum NASC between 160 and 180 m in depth. Both CPUA and CPUE at the different depth interval are higher during the daytime than that at night. The average NASC value reaches the maximum in 12:00 - 15:00. CPUA and CPUE values reach the maximum in 12:00 - 15:00. The pairwise two-sample t-test analysis shows that a significant correlation existed between NASC and CPUA, the equation is y=1.6768x+5.8976 (R²=0.5818). NASC and catch also had a significant correlation, the equation is y=2.0324x+6.3795 (R²=0.785). More acoustic data and fishery data are needed to verify the relations between NASC and catch and further to explore the feasibility of estimating abundance of krill using acoustic and fishery data.