A Standardized, Large-Scale Ecosystem Assessment for the Southern Ocean and the Underpinning Role of Biodiversity Data. Presented by Jess Melbourne-Thomas as part of Keynote at the TDWG 2023 Hybrid Annual Conference in Hobart, Tasmania 9–13 October.
See abstract: https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.7.110481 and check media tab for slides.
Focuses on social ecological systems um so I guess apologies in advance if there are questions I’m unable to answer but I will endeavor to chase up um after after the talk so let’s see whether this magic is going to work do you reckon I can advance no it doesn’t look like
It no I think somebody did that for me yep so could you go back to the previous slide please thank you um I’d also like to acknowledge the Manina people as the uh traditional owners of this land and sea country and the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community as the ongoing custodians um and also given
That the theme of this presentation is on um climate change and Southern Ocean ecosystems I’d like to recognize the vast and continuing cultural knowledge um of Aboriginal and T straight Islander people stretching back back over tens of thousands of years of changes in climate um and also the connection of Southern
Ocean ecosystems to oce Ocean and Coastal environments in Australia um particularly through the seasonal migration of birds and whales next slide please let see if I can make a bit of room for my notes here so I’m not go that’s a bit better um so this morning I’m speaking about the
Underpinning role of body diversity data for large scale ecosystem assessment um so I’ll start with the reasons and approach for undertaking ecosystem assessment in the Southern Ocean next slide please Southern Ocean ecosystems are globally important um they support a range of ecosystem Services which we classify as supporting services um so
Primary production and nutrient cycling uh regulating Services notably the role of ecosystems in climate regulation um they support important and valuable Fisheries as well as other provisioning services um such as genetic resources and they also support cultural services such as uh tourism education and Science and cultural connection the Southern Ocean itself um
Is also Central um to Global ocean circulation and to climate regulation within the Earth system so it’s a hot spot for the transfer of heat and carbon between the atmosphere and the vast Interiors of the ocean uh in fact the Southern Ocean has taken up around
75% um of anthropogenic heat and 43% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide um absorbed by the global ocean since the Industrial Revolution the richness in nutrients uh of the deep ocean water Waters that upwell in the Southern Ocean makes um the seas around Antarctic are some of the most productive on the
Planet and since all the nutrients um aren’t um completely consumed by Regional primary production um before they had Northwood the the Southern Ocean also functions as a a hub of n changes in Antarctic ecosystems so if you go to the next slide we see those poor little penguins um and again next slide
Please so ocean warming is driving other changes in uh Southern Ocean habitats Beyond just sea ice and this figure is showing where Southern Ocean ecosystems are experiencing underlying changes um that are impacting the system overall so the the vertical arrows show the depth to which these effects extend and
There’s a couple of arrows there with slightly lighter shading for species turnover um and also pollution and that indic indicates um that while there’s an expectation that these have occurred at deeper depths um there’s no direct observations currently available and then the maps along the bottom uh show the circumpolar
Occurrence of these changes to date so minimal occurrences is light blue um moderate occurrence is orange and high occurrence is uh red so in terms of climate change ocean warming due to greenhouse gas emissions has effects that extend across all depths of the ocean and to date have been concentrated
In um the Atlantic Center uh sector over um to the left there um and there are cascading effects for habitats which also include things like ice shelf loss um glacia Retreat SE ice loss that we’ve talked about um and flow on effects for habitats um the Southern Ocean is also freshening um and
It’s becoming windier it’s particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification also and I’ll talk a little bit more about about that um later uh next slide please there are also a range of um local drivers of change in Southern Ocean ecosystems which include uh Marine Drive pollution from vessels uh land
Derived pollution from scientific uh research stations and also from tourism uh establishment of non-indigenous species the direct impacts of Tourism and visitation uh we’re seeing Rec y of marine mammals in the Southern Ocean after the cessation of sealing and whaling um which does have implications for uh ecosystem
Processes and then also um fishing and Coastal concentrated Coastal changes that are mostly driven by um breakup of ice shelves and Associated Iceberg scaring next slide please so the need to um assess these ch changes so that managers and decision makers can respond in a timely and sustainable manner has been the
Motivation for the international meso program which stands for not the soup uh the Marine ecosystem assessment for the Southern Ocean and here we are all back at the beginning uh in 2018 at the inaugural meso conference in Hobart uh meso has been a core program of the regional program I integrating
Climate and ecosystem dynamics of the global imber program and it’s also supported by Scar the scientific committee for Antarctic research uh score and Seuss the Southern Ocean observing system uh next topic please uh next slide so meso is the first circum polar assessment of southern ocean ecosystem status and Trends it’s a spatially
Structured assessment and it’s been a five-year international program of over 200 scientists providing a forward-looking assessment of Trends in Southern Ocean ecosystems um you can see there on the right um a map uh of the number of authors by continent we’ve endeavored to ensure that the program has been
Inclusive there’s been a high level of early career researcher involvement and Leadership um and also a good uh gender balance 50% of authors identify as women um and we have 25 papers in a Frontiers research topic um with uh over 200,000 views so far next slide please so um at its
Workshop in uh woking in the UK in 2019 the meso participants agreed to establish areas for assessing how ecosystem attributes vary around Antarctica and the Southern Ocean and also for assessing Dynamics and change um so the these areas were intended to reflect regions within which the Dynamics of sea ice ocean and benic
Habitats um combined remained reasonably similar across the region um the areas are similar to areas that are designed for particular disciplines like oceanography um and for the management of Fisheries in camla the commission for the conservation of Antarctic Marine living resources um but they don’t match exactly because the intention in meso is
To reflect ecological and ecosystem property so across many disciplines um within an area um and they’re also larger than the areas designed to coordinate field research activities across Nations um so here’s the map of the Miso areas they’re determined by a combination of five sectors which are
The main colors and three zones which are the um the different shadings next slide please so this figure shows the scope of the Miso assessment and some bonus pictures of penguins um whales and seals actually fell through the ice next to this minky whale in East Antartica was cold
Um so so Misa provides the first assessment of status and trends for habitats and the drivers of habitat change are shown as icons on the left um species and food webs and we have the um the central icons with colors denoting the two main Pathways of energy flow in
Southern ocean food webs through Antarctic Krill uh in Orange um and uh through fish in blue um and then we also show here if you can make it out the species that are currently recovering um from harvesting they have a solid outline uh and then also ecosystem
Services on the right um at the top are example observation platforms um delivering data to underpin um assessments and then the modeling and assessment process is shown at the bottom which in turn informs decisions made around conservation resilience and sustainability next slide please so I’m just going to go through the features of
Um biodiversity data that are available to support southern ocean ecosystem assessment um this is a historical timeline of data Gathering and data system that can underpin southern ocean ecosystem assessment um the details are obviously far too small to read here but I just wanted to put into context the
Very long history stretching back to 1770 of scientific observation in the Southern Ocean um and also in relation to the establishment of Southern Ocean Data Systems which um are at the bottom um in in Blue uh and most notably the scar Antarctic biodiversity portal which began just over a decade ago next slide
Please so this map shows um time series of human observations sourced from jbf and obis um for each meso area uh the Y AIS on each of these panels is the number of Records per square kilometer uh and the number of human observation records per unit area is
Highest and has increased the most in recent years um in the sub Antarctic zone of the central Indian sector which is the the medium yellow there um in the Antarctic zone of the East Pacific sector so close to the Antarctic peninsula in bright pink um and the Antarctica Northern zones of the East
Indian sector which are the um two darker shades of green at the bottom there so I guess the key Point here is that um unsurprisingly for a region that is as hard to access as the Southern Ocean the availability of biodiversity data is spatially variable um with some regions much better sample than
Others so next slide thanks sticking with human observations overall pelagic species are better sample than benic species um with a higher percentage of Records on the top left and high spatial coverage on the top right uh birds and mammals are by far um the most sampled group followed by
Crustations and birds and mammals and crustations also um are the groups with the best spatial coverage um but there are some groups which have relatively low sampling but good spatial coverage so some examples there are mosks uh gelatinous Su Plankton and anals next slide please this is the evolution of the
Number of Records um Through Time across five um and interestingly here proteobacteria um were absent from the database um databases until the decade from 1980 to 1989 but we’ve seen a very marked increase continuing in the last decade of this time series next slide thanks so the top panel here is an
Overall time series of the number of records for human and machine observations with some key expeditions highlighted the um Discovery investigations the biological investigations of marine Antarctic systems and stocks which is the biomass survey um the Southern Ocean continuous Plankton recorder surveys and the census of Antarctic marine
Life uh and then in the bottom two panels you can see um a consistent seasonal bias particularly for human observations where we have higher sampling intensity during the ostr summer months for obvious reasons um and there’s a it’s a little bit hard to make out there’s a peak in human
Observations in May in the last decade that’s dominated by what um seems to be a single campaign collecting and analyzing environmental DNA in 2016 next slide please um and then finally molecular data has only started to represent a significant amount of um data for the Southern Ocean um in these databases since
2010 um and you can see uh on the top left um yeah so so more recent but and with um the four dominant fer all being um microorganisms uh currently um spatially patchy availability but it seems that molecular data will be increasingly important in supporting ecosystem
Assessment um and and we think that in this context in the future it will be important to move away from sampling to support species distribution modeling at least for the Southern Ocean because of um these models are very coarse in terms of ecological understanding but to be undertaking sampling that helps
Determine ecological separation of populations and metapopulations um and that can be thought of as the degree of connectivity between locations and the possible recovery times um if a place is Disturbed next slide please so uh dietary data has also been important in informing miso um this figure shows the distribution of dietary
Data from the scar uh Southern Ocean dietary database south of 40 Dees South um the transparent gray dots are the locations of um diet sample data um that we used in an analysis of food web structure and then the Clusters um are represented by darker Shades because of overlaid dots next slide
Thanks so these beautiful um Graphics are representations of southern ocean food webs for the Atlantic sector in the top left um the Indian sector in the top right the East Pacific in the bottom left and the West Pacific in the bottom right um and Antarctic Krill which are really important species in Southern
Ocean ecosystems are shown as the the black circles there and the black connecting lines um so the point of these figures including these figures is really just to highlight that um D relationships in the Southern Ocean are very complex um contrary to kind of previous thinking that there were quite simple food chains
Um and also that the structure of um food webs in different parts of the Southern Ocean is very different and understanding these different energy Pathways is really Central to examining climate change impacts in Southern Ocean ecosystems next slide please so I’m not going to go um into
The meso findings in a lot of detail but I just have a few slides that summarize findings across some key taxonomic groups and also give you a flavor for um how we’ve summarized and presented the results from the assessment so the drivers of change for Krill and zup plankton in the Southern
Ocean are quite complex and this figures an attempt to summarize what’s currently known about the level of influence of different drivers um and the vulnerability of different groups so just spend a a brief moment explaining how to interpret the figure the drivers of change are listed down
The left hand side and the groups are listed across the top um we have the key there on the right showing that um red is a high level of influence of a driver on a particular group orange is a medium level uh blue is a low level of
Influence and that the blue gray color shows where there’s um an unknown um influence or it varies greatly according to species so the key messages here are that temperature has a high degree of influence on all groups um except for cop pods for um where the effect isn’t
Known and that sea ice and ocean circulation are also important factors um and population trajectories for zooplankton under future climate change will be determined by the interacting effects of the drive is shown here next slide thanks for seabirds and marine mammals there are a range of climate associated associated drivers
That have different effects for different groups and species um again in this figure we have the colors showing the nature of the impacts red is a negative impact purple is a mixed impact blue is a positive impact and yellow means that there’s no effect um and this figure also uses
Filled circles to indicate confidence levels for each impact based on available evidence following the ipcc style for reporting confidence levels so ocean warming and extreme events have a negative impact for all groups and shifting frontal locations also have negative impacts for species that need to travel further for foraging if you
Could Advance the next part of the slide please thanks in terms of sea ice processes impacts are mixed for flying birds penguins and seals given given the the varying ways in which different species depend on sea ice habitats um and increased precipitation has a negative impact for penguins and finally
Um if you can put up the last bit please um in this table we also looked at the impact of Fisheries interactions for marine mammals and birds and that’s been a core part of me so the um examination of um Fisheries Trends and impacts um and just to highlight here
That the yellow Square indicates no change for the impact of um cruel fishing on on seabirds but a negative impact for Penguins next slide please um as I said at the beginning the Southern Ocean is particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification because of the effect of temperature on carbonate chemistry um ocean acidification is
Affecting ecosystems at all depths but organisms at deeper depths are particularly vulnerable because of the effects of both temperature and pressure on the dissolution of calcium carbonate um so the effect of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and consequent uptake by the oceans is that the aragonite um saturation Horizon is
Shallowing so the depth range suitable for calcification is shrinking and will continue to shrink um aragonite under saturation in surface waters has already been observed in a number of Southern Ocean regions and expect it’s expected to become more widespread and impact Southern Ocean ecosystem components and processes increasingly over coming
Decades um and Beni cying species are particularly vulnerable but also um pelagic groups like calor uh fifin and terap pods can’t actually tell how I’m going for time I think I’m okay okay so next slide please thanks this figure summarizes um change in benic ecosystem so moving
Anticlockwise from the top left we have increases in ocean temperature um leading to fewer low temperature adapted species and an increase in um invasive crab abundance decreases in SE I uh leading to more opportunists and fewer specialized suspension feeders increases in iceberg scouring meaning more fast growing species and more mobile
Species uh as I just said ocean acidification leading to fewer species with um that are calcifying um and fishery pressure um meaning fewer um slow growing species and sponges particularly where there’s been thick disturbance from fishing activities next slide thanks so the the meso assessment also included cultural connections to
Southern Ocean ecosystems um and it’s resulted in this interactive database of stories and cultural connection um and we think that understanding cultural connection and how it’s expressed in stories and cultural art forms um and as well as how it’s changed over time is is incredibly important in helping to inform policy
And decision making for uh the protection of Southern Ocean ecosystems next slide please um so our meso summary for policy makers is being sent to the printers as we speak um it will be officially launched in Hobart next month um and more generally some examples of the impact
And uptake of miso to date include um its role in underpinning assessments for the latest ipcc assessment report from working group 2 um we’ve given presentations at both the um cop 26 and cop 27 meetings in Glasgow and Egypt um and miso has also contributed to a recent workshop on climate change
Held by the commission for the conservation of Antarctic Marine living resources and I’ve particularly acknowledged here the two other Mis co conveners uh Andrew Constable who’s based in Hobart and Monica mubert in Brazil next slide please so our key findings for policy policy from meso that the Southern Ocean
And its ecosystems play critical roles in the climate system and these ecosystem functions are at risk because of anthropogenic climate change next point please actually just whack them all up and then I can thank you um climate change is the most significant driver of species and ecosystem change in the Southern Ocean
And Coastal Antarctica um and direct human interventions at sufficient scale to reduce sensitivity and exposure of cold and sea ice adapted species to the impacts of climate change are um unavailable at present which means that climate change mitigation is currently um the only option for reducing the impacts um
Actions are also needed to ensure that local and Regional human activities don’t impact the resilience of these species and systems and to reduce the risk of Southern Ocean ecosystems transitioning into alternative States from which recovery couldn’t be achieved and finally long-term maintenance of Southern Ocean ecosystems particularly polar adapted Antarctic
Species and Coastal systems can only be achieved with high confidence in the long term by curbing climate change and ocean acidification through greenhouse gas emission reduction next slide please we’ll have all these points too thanks um in terms of our recommendations for ongoing measurement and assessment for Southern Ocean ecosystems um directly
Measuring the state of Southern Ocean ecosystems is really Central to assessment uh new approaches and greater and more sustained investment than at present is requ required for covering the complexity of food webs diverse communities and the large extent and remoteness of the region uh greater Geographic spread of ongoing comprehensive long-term ecosystem
Studies is needed to assess spatial and seasonal variability for establishing Trends in ecosystem structure and function systematic and sustained long-term measurement of habitats and biota are needed to underpin assessments of ecosystem change um and finally assessments of change will be facilitated by archiving curating and openly sharing data algorithms and tools
Based on Fair principles next slide please um so I’ve presented results from the the first Marine ecosystem assessment for the Southern Ocean but we anticipate and hope that this will be an activity that’s repeated at regular intervals um and this figure is a conceptual representation of the different
Components of an integrated system of marine biological observations and informatics that are compatible with Global Systems but also address the specific properties of the Southern Ocean um so it’s centered around essential variables and linked to the fair principles in red and the ipy uh International polar year data Vision in
Purple so the intention is that um sorry can I’ve wasn’t quite finished thank you um the intention is that this system can build on existing platforms and standards and add to them where needed but also enable the inclusion of new methods and ideas and and obviously it also needs to be transparent and
Traceable um and based on a minimum set of um VAR measured using comparable methods across space and time next slide please um so I’m going to finish up with uh a really beautiful graphic that was um developed by The Talented Eve Brennan for one of the presentations I mentioned
That we gave to the uh cop meeting in Glasgow um and the story tells how the Antarctic and Southern Ocean is an ecosystem of global significance as a heat and carbon s that it’s a place that captures the imagination of people around the world and supports fisheries
And tourism you could pop up the next bit please um the Antarctic is a key part of global ocean circulation where carbon and nutrients sink to the bottom of the ocean and travel around the world next thanks phytoplankton and krill formed the ecosystem foundation for predators that travel
From the equator or live on sea ice where bottom dwellers evolved in freezing Waters and need them to remain cold this is a giant sea spider and a sponge if that needed clarifying next bit thank you so right now the Southern Ocean needs climate change mitigation to continue the ecosystem processes that everybody
Needs next slide thanks so we can consider two possible futures for the southern ocean ecosystem um by limiting warming to 1.5° we can preserve and maintain the key things we care about and depend on from the Southern Ocean beyond that level our current scientific understanding is that ecosystem services will be degraded and
That we may lose elements of the system loss of CCE will have cascading effects for key species food webs and ecosystem services and at two degrees of warming the risks are very high and it’s unclear whether recovery would ever be possible um thank you for bearing with
Me through the minor Technical gures and again thank you so much for the invitation to present as part of the conference [Applause] thanks any questions in the room anyone online please onl uh thanks I was trying to work out how to put this into the app but I couldn’t
I couldn’t determine it um G given the things that are plausible and possible uh if investment was available to put more uh to collect more data on biodiversity in the Antarctic region what are the types of data and the approaches that you’d find most useful to improve your recommendations great
Question um and we do go into some more detail on that in in this the summary for policy makers that I mentioned I’m happy to share the link around once that’s available um I guess some some key elements that I touched on are the the need to be sampling um agreed
Essential variables um and we’re coming close to an agreed set there um addressing the the seasonal data Gap I think will be a very important thing and more investment in in more sustained and um geographically even sampling um the Z Plankton the lower trophic levels um there very complex in terms of
Untangling the drivers so well we have some really great records for Zo Plankton from things like the the CPR record um I think um filling the gaps that we have there in terms of the changes in the the zup Plankton will be important and then finally I mentioned
The capacity to untangle these different um Pathways for energy flow through the cruel based food web and the fish-based food web and we expect that potentially um the implications of warming and acidification for Cru versus um cop pods which are the source of food for many of the mesopelagic fish May
Mean that that fish pathway is more important and so data Gathering I think that can help us untangle when and where we’re seeing that transition in energy flow will be very important as well is that helpful yeah thanks thank you very much this is very very
Cool um uh how realistic it is to use data density maps and the and uh uh to plan future routes for the cruises is it is it at all possible to to imagine that um the map of the best available data we have now will actually inform a future
Exploration to cover those gaps with with actual new data not extrapolations and the second uh uh question or like comment to the whole tadwick uh this tadwick we don’t have anything on data interactions as far as I know I wrote to Antonio surara and we have an interest group on interactions
Data you mentioned food webs and interaction data are probably um one of the most most difficult types uh to store and manage in the databases so um maybe we could form a little group of interested people about that to compensate for the lack of interaction session in this conference I would be in
Particular interested to know know how you handle the food web related data for the beautiful graphs you were showing thank you both um excellent questions that push me slightly outside my comfort zone into the data space but I agree that the density Maps would be really helpful
Some of that a little bit of that work has been done um a challenge which probably applies to other um contexts here is that um the um fishery vessel deriv data is another important source so it’s putting it all together in a way that we can more meaningfully identify
Those actual gaps but yes I think that’s really useful suggestion and also yes very interested in any discussions around the interactions data which um yeah and I can share the um the underpinning work for those food web figures if that’s useful yeah thanks for a great presentation
Excuse me um all of those recomend recomendations that you have in the report they’re all basically about more data how much data is enough do we think for the trust to start converting those into actions and what’s the response to sort of from policy makers about that
Are they uh I mean I know you haven’t published the report yet but is that what’s their sort of perspective on that next stage yeah that’s a really important point and particularly in relation to the way that um camla for instance the the um Fisheries man and conservation management body for the
Southern Ocean can respond um we’re very clear in the messaging from both miso and and in other context that there is actually enough information um already available to be developing strategies to respond to climate change the lack of data has been used previously as a
Reason not to take action so I agree you know there’s an important trade-off there in messaging around having enough information to take action but needing more information I guess particularly to identify where we might be approaching those critical transitions I talked about so tipping points for instance um
Are a potential risk for the well they a real risk for for the Southern Ocean both in terms of the habitats and species and assemblages so um more data that can be more targeted I guess to help us untangle which trajectory that we’re on um and that is integrated with
The modeling systems that can provide us with that forward-looking lens as well does that I said yeah so I noticed in your data that the effects on copap pods were undetermined um I would interpret that as the the copap Pod category is to course is is that how you would interpret that as
Well and if so what would appropriate taxonomic resolution be for that that might be one that I agree I might have to take it on notice and go to our resident um cop pod expert um and I’m very happy to yeah get back to your other one there’s a question online Shelly I
Think probably small versus large is important in terms of the um the food sources so the diet you know whether they’re feeding on diets or some of the smaller F Plankton or um other Z Plankton but since I’ve got the m uh the question online is you had graphs comparing human gathered observations
And machine gathered observations not surprisingly there was a large difference in Winter what are the most common sources of machine gathered observations I’m unable to give a definitive answer there um but I believe some of the increase for the winter months is related for instance to the um
Sensors that are deployed on um seals particularly um as well as some of the the um biological sensors on Argo flows for instance but beyond that apologies that’s another one I might have to um take on noce yeah thank you very much I really enjoy your presentation um I have two questions so
I’m a data manager from Scot and top diversity portal nice meeting you so my question is what are the information that I could encourage the data provider to Pro provide that could enhance the Miso analysis the second questions is what are the is there any information
That you could not find for the analysis because it doesn’t fit into the ding core standard for example thank you great it sounds maybe that we should have a a longer discussion around that um after the talk but um yeah I might have to think about that in
Terms of the the suggestions I think sometimes there’s um it’s not so much the uh the continuity in terms of the data availability but it’s more the translation of the findings from the analysis of the data to the policy makers where the Gap is actually that’s my sense um but yeah I
Think I wonder whether you know I talked a little bit about molecular data and whether there’s some challenges there in terms of thinking about how that’s made available but yeah be really good to have a conversation thanks is there anyone down in Antarctica way down here who would like to ask
Something it’s apparently too cold down there going going oh well excellent amazing presentation thank you so much um our company zyo systems provides useful data for businesses that are impacting the environment excuse me and obviously there’s lots of businesses Fisheries uh tourism operating in the Antarctic they do want to do good and
They do want to mitigate their impact how do you see providing this type of data and information in a useful manner for businesses to understand and mitigate their impacts yeah fantastic question and a really interesting topic actually one where I think there’s a lot of space to think about different ways to deliver
Information and that’s partly why for different audiences we’ve started using some of those kind of more narrative examples um like the comics that I showed um and I guess another interesting point too is that you know there’s a strong interest um from philanthropists too in investing to minimize um what better understand
Impact on Antarctic ecosystems and and improve sustainability outcomes in terms of presence um so that’s a very long way round of saying perhaps it’s something to explore depending on the particular business um or audience but um and there may be some good examples already for the Antarctic Peninsula region which is
Kind of the hot spot for tourism but um I don’t have a clear answer for you but I think it’s a really important topic thanks thank you um really nice talk um I just get curious because on one slide you show that you had like really high
Abundance of proty bacteria and I was wondering oh wow that’s a cool uh where does that was coming from I I don’t know okay wor I should have prepared before I pointed it out but yes it is in me no I I feel like I’m probably the only one microbiologist like oh wow
Bacteria out there okay thanks yeah thank you all right all right please please join me in thinking Jess once again fabulous talk thank you all right um all right moving right along