PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2

North Pacific Marine Science Organization

OSM Session on “Strategies for ecosystem management in a changing climate”
by Anne B. Hollowed, Suam Kim and Manuel Barange
The co-authors of this summary co-convened Session S7
on “Strategies for ecosystem management in a changingclimate” held April 17, 2014, as part of the PICES
FUTURE Open Science Meeting. The session was cosponsored by the ICES-PICES Strategic Initiative (Section)
on Climate Change Effects on Marine Ecosystems.

enhanced data collection, next generation modeling, and skill
assessments to evaluate projection performance.
The session included 10 oral presentations. The first three
talks focused on Objective “A”. Samuel Pooley presented
several examples from the Hawaii region of how marine
ecosystems could mediate the relationship between people
and nature. Jake Rice discussed the information that isreally needed to inform adaptation strategies to climatechange. His talk considered the question of: How well
does the supply of science advice meet the demand forpolicy support? He noted that scientists attempting toproject future climate change impacts on marine
ecosystems should consider the impacts of extreme events
rather than focusing solely on average conditions.
Biological Envelope Modeling will not be applicable to all
fisheries management issues, as such projections areprimarily for use for large-scale fisheries targeting mobilespecies. He advocated more place-based forecasts of fishcommunities. Manuel Barange discussed how climate
impacts on fisheries production differentially affectfisheries-dependent communities.

Overview
The session explored the complex issue of implementing an
ecosystem approach to management under changing
climate conditions. Climate change is expected to impact
the distribution and abundance of fish and shellfish throughdirect and indirect pathways. The temporal signature ofthese changes will be dominated by long-term trends andthus may require new approaches to setting biologicalreference points for single species management. Projection
models indicate that climate change may alter the species
composition within an ecosystem which, in turn, couldchange the structure and function of the system. New
approaches may be needed to address the complex issues ofdefining biological and ecosystem reference points under
uncertain future states of nature. For fished stocks that areprojected to decline under changing climate conditions, it isunclear when or if additional precautionary approaches
would sustain the populations or the fishery that depends
on them.
Objectives
Participants in this session presented papers that addressed
the research theme noted above by: A) exploring
implementations of an ecosystem approach to management
under projected climate change; B) proposing techniquesthat identified how uncertainty in climate and biologicalresponses could be incorporated into biological or
ecosystem reference points; C) evaluating the performanceof proposed strategies under changing climate conditions;and D) defining the precautionary approach under achanging climate.

Dr. Jake Rice (Canada) discussing adaptation strategies to climate change.

Summary
Scott Large gave the keynote talk for this session on behalfof Jason Link. The presentation, entitled “Solutions formarine ecosystem-based management in a changingclimate”, focused on Objective “A” above and identified
what changes to the current approach for defining andimplementing an ecosystem approach to management will beneeded to adapt to changing ecosystem conditions. Thespeaker recommended that the “climate savvy” ecosystemapproach will include vulnerability and risk assessments,
Summer 2014

Dr. Manuel Barange (UK) discussing climate change impacts on fisheries
production.

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North Pacific Marine Science Organization

PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2
Kirstin Holsman, presenting on behalf of Kerim Aydin,
discussed a full end-to-end model that has been developed
for the Bering Sea. Anne Hollowed, on behalf of Sukyung
Kang and Nicholas Bond, presented results of projected
production of Korean chub mackerel under past and futureclimate climate conditions. Tim Essington discussed thebenefits of conducting meta-analyses as a technique forunderstanding key factors underlying fish responses toclimate change.
Two talks focused on Objective “C”. Kirstin Holsman
presented a multispecies modeling approach thatincorporates climate effects on bioenergetics. This model
is formulated to allow the analyst to explore the trade-offs
of different management strategies through a management
strategy evaluation. Anne Hollowed and Cody Szuwalski
are working on the difficult task of defining a suite ofpotential strategic responses that managers andstakeholders might consider in the future. None of thetalks specifically dealt with Objective “D”.

Manuel Barange, Jake Rice and Myron Peck (back to camera) talking
about adaptation strategies during break?

Five talks focused on Objective “B”. Paul Spencer
discussed techniques for evaluating the implications ofclimate-induced shifts in spatial distributions on predator–
prey interactions. Jacquelynne King reviewed several
management approaches employed for northeast Pacificfish stocks that incorporated climate variability and change.

Acknowledgements The Session convenors would like tothank the keynote speaker and session participants for active
discussions.

Dr. Anne B. Hollowed (anne.hollowed@noaa.gov) is a Senior Scientist with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service’s AlaskaFisheries Science Center. Anne serves as Co-Chairman of the joint PICES/ICES Section on Climate Change Effects on Marine
Ecosystems. She is also a lead author of Chapter 28, Polar Regions, of the Working Group II contribution to the Fifth Assessment
Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Dr. Suam Kim (suamkim@pknu.ac.kr) is a Professor of the Pukyong National University, Busan, Korea. His areas of interest include
fisheries ecology, especially recruitment variability focusing on early life histories of fish in relation to oceanic/climate changes. Suamhas represented Korea in several international organizations and programs, such as PICES, GLOBEC, CCAMLR, IGBP, NPAFC andSCOR. He serves as Co-Chairman of the joint PICES/ICES Section on Climate Change Effects on Marine Ecosystems.
Dr. Manuel Barange (m.barange@pml.ac.uk) is the Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Science at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory(UK). He was Director of the International Project Office of the IOC-SCOR-IGBP core project GLOBEC from 1999–2010 andChairman of the Scientific Committee of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) from 2010–2013. Manuel’s
expertise includes physical/biological interactions, climate and anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems, fish ecology, behaviour
and trophodynamics, and fisheries assessment and management. In recent years, he has increasingly focused his research on the impactsof climate change and economic globalization on marine-based commodities, and on the interactions between natural and social
sciences in fisheries, ecosystems and climate change, in both the developed and developing world. He co-chairs the ICES/PICESStrategic Initiative (Section) on Climate Change Effects on Marine Ecosystems and is a founding member of the Global Partnership for
Climate, Fisheries and Aquaculture (PaCFA).

19Summer 2014