PI CE S P r e s s

SUMMER 2014
VOL. 22, NO. 2

Newsletter of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization

FUTURE and the FUTURE Open Science Meeting — The future of FUTURE
by Harold (Hal) Batchelder

FUTURE (Forecasting and Understanding Trends,
Uncertainty and Responses of North Pacific Marine
Ecosystems) is the second integrative science program
implemented by PICES. The first science program of
PICES, the Climate Change and Carrying Capacity(CCCC) program, had a goal of increasing understandingof climate influences on marine ecosystems, especially as
climate might impact the carrying capacity of the North
Pacific to support fish resources. The goals of FUTURE
go beyond understanding climate effects to understanding
how marine ecosystems in the North Pacific respond toclimate change and human activities, to forecast ecosystemstatus based on a contemporary knowledge of how naturefunctions, and to communicate new insights to its members,
governments, stakeholders and the public. This is a muchbroader mandate than that expected from the CCCC
program. It also includes new, and in some cases,
unfamiliar or difficult aspects such as developing useful(e.g., skillful, with uncertainty estimates) climate–ecosystem products and engaging with non-scientificstakeholders to determine what products are useful anddesired, and how to deliver those to receptive audiences.

The leadership of PICES, while very satisfied with thescientific productivity of the CCCC integrative program,felt there was a disconnect between the program and the six
standing committees of PICES, which are oriented along
the disciplines or technical needs of the Organization.
Thus, there was a desire to better integrate the activities of
FUTURE into the committees. This was done by tasking
the leadership of FUTURE to the PICES Science Board,which includes as its members the chairman of eachcommittee. Science Board receives advice from three
Advisory Panels (AP) that make up FUTURE, whose
chairs are also members of Science Board: AP-COVE:
Climate Ocean Variability and Ecosystems, AP-AICE:
Anthropogenic Influences on Coastal Ecosystems, and APSOFE: Status, Outlooks, Forecasts and Engagement.
New expert groups would be proposed, and if approved byCouncil, established to work on new tasks that require
specific expertise or focused effort. Since the start of
FUTURE in October 2009, six new working groups, twosections and five study groups have been created to
specifically address scientific issues relevant to FUTURE.

In This Issue
FUTURE and the FUTURE Open Science Meeting —The future of FUTURE .......................................................... 1
2014 Inter-sessional Science Board Meeting: A note ................ 3
More attractive science ecosystem design for FUTURE andbeyond: A personal view ....................................................... 6
OSM Session on “Identifying multiple pressures and system
responses in North Pacific marine ecosystems” ......................... 9
OSM Session on “Regional climate modeling in the North
Pacific” ................................................................................ 11
OSM Session on “Challenges in communicating scienceand engaging the public” ..................................................... 12
OSM Sessions on “Ecosystem status, trends, and forecasts”
and “Ecosystem resilience and vulnerability” ...................... 16
OSM Session on “Strategies for ecosystem management in achanging climate” ................................................................ 18
OSM Workshop on “Top predators as indicators of climatechange” ................................................................................ 20
OSM Workshop on “Bridging the divide between models
and decision-making”......................................................... 24

OSM Workshop on “Climate change and ecosystem-based
management of living marine resources” ............................. 27
OSM Workshop on an “Ecosystem projection model intercomparison and assessment of climate change impacts
on global fish and fisheries” ................................................. 29
ICES Symposium on the “Ecological basis of risk analysis
for marine ecosystems” ......................................................... 35
Human dimensions in the Russian Federation ......................... 39
Microbial Culture Collection at the National Institute forEnvironmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan ............................... 43
The Bering Sea: Current status and recent trends.................... 46
The state of the western North Pacific in the second halfof 2013.................................................................................. 49
Unusual warming in the Gulf of Alaska ................................... 51
Obituary – Dr. Toshiro Saino ................................................... 53
Program of topic sessions and workshops at PICES-2014 ....... 56
3rd International Symposium on “Effects of climate changeon the world’s oceans” ......................................................... 57
PICES Interns........................................................................... 58

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 Products (new science knowledge, status reports, forecasts
and outlooks, outreach and engagement), Expert group contributions and future needs, and Events (e.g., symposia, workshops).

The new working groups established specifically to addresscomponents of FUTURE are: WG 26, Jellyfish Blooms
around the North Pacific Rim: Causes and Consequences;
WG 27, North Pacific Climate Variability and Change;
WG 28, Development of Ecosystem Indicators to
Characterize Responses to Multiple Stressors; WG 29,
Regional Climate Modeling; WG 30, Assessment of Marine
Environmental Quality of Radiation around the North
Pacific; and WG 31, Emerging Topics in Marine Pollution.
These working groups have clearly defined terms ofreference, and are expected to complete their tasks usually
within three, or exceptionally four, years. The two new
Sections on Climate Change Effects on Marine Ecosystems(S-CCME) and Human Dimensions of Marine Systems(S-HD), created to advance FUTURE objectives, areexpected to continue during the entire program. The Study
Groups on Socio-Ecological-Environmental Systems (SGSEES) and Biodiversity Conservation (SG-BC) wereapproved by Governing Council at PICES-2013. A
common result from study groups is the recommendationof a longer term group, usually a working group, to pursue
the problem over multiple years. SG-SEES will develop an
integrated Social-Ecological-Environmental model casestudy of hypoxia and acidification in a coastal ocean andrecommend a suitable focus region. SG-BC will review
drivers of biodiversity change in the North Pacific, identify
new approaches for advancing biodiversity-base research in
the North Pacific, review past biodiversity research andidentify potential collaborations and the potential toprovide evidence-based advice for informing diversity
conservation and management. Both new study groups
will meet at PICES-2014 in Yeosu, Korea.

Roadmaps with these “landmarks” are updated about twicea year and can be viewed at http://pices.int/members/scienti
fic_programs/FUTURE/FUTURE-roadmap.aspx.
Also at this workshop, PICES expert groups described
products that might emerge from the FUTURE activities
within the next 2–3 years, which is about at the time that
this article is being written. It was recognized at themeeting that products should be driven by demand fromstakeholders, which were (a) not represented at theworkshop, and (b) have not yet been surveyed or asked to
specify their needs. Products available within a few years
were judged to be sufficiently close that they were likely toappear during FUTURE but still provide time to identify
receptive audiences (outside of the scientific community).
PICES took an adaptive approach to focus on products thatwill be ready for communication soon, and to identify andcontact potential users to begin dialog to make products
relevant to their needs. Fifteen “potential” FUTURE
products were listed in a PICES Press (Vol. 20, No. 2, pp.
5–8) article about the ISB-2012 meeting and roadmap
workshop. While many are actively being worked on, or
perhaps are ready, none have, to this writer’s knowledge,
actually been delivered to non-scientist stakeholders.
Another recommendation that emerged from the roadmap
workshop was to hold a FUTURE Open Science Meetingin the spring of 2014. This meeting was to serve many
purposes, but I will mention only two here. First, toshowcase (and dare I say, celebrate) the breadth and depthof FUTURE-related science that has been accomplishedand second, to provide an opportunity for self assessmentand external critique of the FUTURE program goals,
progress and structure. The convenors of most of thescientific sessions and workshops have written summaries
for this newsletter, which I personally thank them for theirefforts on organizing, convening and summarizing thesesessions/workshops. As to the assessment and critique, I
will leave that to the FUTURE Evaluation Team.

A workshop to develop a FUTURE “roadmap” was held in
May 2012 to provide higher level coordination of thevarious expert groups that are contributing to furthering the
FUTURE objectives. A roadmap (basically sufficient
information to get from where we were two years ago towhere we want to be in 2019, when FUTURE will be
10 years old) was developed. What emerged from thismeeting was more a timeline than a map, but it did provide
indications of what new expert groups might be needed andwhat FUTURE activities would occur. Included in theroadmap were:

Dr. Hal Batchelder (hbatch@pices.int) is the Deputy Executive Secretary of PICES (since
February 2014). Prior to assuming that position he was a Professor in the College of Earth,
Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS) at Oregon State University. Hal has contributed to
PICES in diverse ways previously: Co-chairman of the Climate Change and Carrying Capacity
integrative science program and Science Board member; member of several study groups andworking groups; member of AP-SOFE; and U.S. delegate to the PICES Governing Council. His
research specialization is biological oceanography and ocean ecology, with emphasis on
zooplankton population and community ecology, and the coupling of ecological processes to ocean
physics using numerical models. Recent interests have included design of Marine Protected Areas,
and the changing incidence of hypoxia on the U.S. west coast and its potential impacts on shelforganisms.

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PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2

2014 Inter-sessional Science Board Meeting:A note from the new Science Board Chairman

In recent years it has become a tradition to have the PICES
inter-sessional Science Board (ISB) meeting in conjunction
with another meeting or workshop. This year was no
exception as we met April 19–21 right on the heels of the
PICES FUTURE Open Science Meeting (OSM) which washeld on the Kohala Coast on the Big Island of Hawaii.
FUTURE (Forecasting and Understanding Trends,
Uncertainty and Responses of North Pacific Marine
Ecosystems) is the second integrative science program of
PICES. Planning for the OSM had been in the works forabout 2 years, and the meeting was a tremendous successas you will see from the session and workshop summaries
in the following pages. In addition, since the OSM wasplanned around the mid-point of the FUTURE program,
Science Board decided it would be an opportune time toreview progress, identify gaps, and set the course for thelast half of this decade-long program. Science Board,which also functions as the Scientific Steering Committee(SSC) for FUTURE, established an Evaluation Team thatconsisted of some scientists involved in FUTURE andothers knowing little about the program, to conduct a
review and provide an assessment and recommendations to
PICES. The Evaluation Team report and comments fromthe PICES standing committees and FUTURE Advisory
Panels will soon be available on the PICES website. The
Team did an exceptional job and although they foundprogress was great in many areas, there were other parts of
FUTURE where progress was lagging, and where extra
attention and refocusing is needed. Science Board will

discuss the report over the summer and will engage thebroader PICES community about possible changes in
FUTURE during a day-long meeting on Sunday, October
19 at PICES-2014 in Yeosu, Korea. I encourage all PICES
attendees to participate in this meeting, since FUTURE is
identified as a high priority activity of the Organization.
Please plan to arrive in Yeosu in time to contribute to thisimportant discussion. ISB-2014 was my first official
meeting as Science Board Chairman after taking over from
Sinjae Yoo following PICES-2013 in Nanaimo, Canada.

FUTURE Evaluation Team members (from left): Jake Rice, Jackie King,
Julie Hall, Manuel Barange, Bill Peterson, and Shin-ichi Ito.

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Participants of the ISB-2014 meeting (from left): Chuanlin Huo (MEQ), Phillip Mundy (AP-SOFE), Enrique Curchitser (Governing Council), Adi
Kellermann (ICES), Michael Foreman (POC), Tom Therriault (Science Board Chairman), Hal Batchelder (PICES Deputy Executive Secretary), John
Stein (Governing Council), Alex Bychkov, (PICES Executive Secretary), Hiroaki Saito (Science Board Vice-Chairman), Steven Bograd (MONITOR),Angelica Peña (BIO), Chul Park (PICES Vice-Chairman), Ken Mori (F&A), Libby Logerwell (FIS), Jennifer Boldt (MONITOR), Hideaki Maki (MOE,
Japan), Igor Shevchenko (representing Russia), Toru Suzuki (TCODE), Karin Baba (Japan), Laura Richards (PICES Chairman), Robin Brown (Governing
Council), Guangshui Na (WG 31).

will be very busy with the 3rd Climate Change Symposium
next year in Santos, Brazil. PICES and ICES in the coming
year will review their framework for strategic cooperation
to ensure emerging research topics are included, somethingthat was intended in the original framework. As you may
recall from previous updates in PICES Press (see Vol. 20,
No. 1, p. 13) these types of frameworks have been used to
identify other organizations/programs where increased
collaboration would be a mutual benefit. PICES Science
Board approved a similar framework for collaboration with
the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC)
following a recommendation from a Study Groupestablished to develop the framework. Another organization
with overlapping interests and geographical extent with
PICES is NOWPAP (Northwest Pacific Action Plan) which
is a Regional Seas Program of the United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP). China, Japan, Korea andRussia are members of both organizations. NOWPAP and
PICES have a long history of cooperative efforts. A joint
Study Group was recommended by Science Board andapproved by Governing Council in early July to explore
strategic cooperation with NOWPAP. The Study Groupwill begin work this summer by correspondence and have aface-to-face meeting in Yeosu in October. These are but a
few examples of PICES collaboration – as the depth andbreadth of PICES science continues to grow, so does ourneed (and desire) to work with others in the scientific community.

However, I was not the only one with a new leadership roleas this was also the first Science Board meeting for Jennifer
Boldt (Technical Committee on Monitoring), Angelica
Peña (Biological Oceanography Committee), and Steven
Bograd (FUTURE Advisory Panel on Anthropogenic
Influences on Coastal Ecosystems) who now has my oldjob. Also, Hiroaki Saito was unanimously approved as
Science Board Vice-Chairman, and so I welcome Hiroakiin this new capacity.
As the science that PICES conducts and fosters enlarges inscope, so too does the need for strategic (and technical)
collaboration with other organizations. PICES and ICES
have a shared interest in Northern Hemisphere marine
science issues and established a framework for strategiccooperation (approved in 2011), joint working groups, andhave convened a number of jointly sponsored symposia,
workshops, and topic/theme sessions. At ISB-2014 we
discussed two joint PICES/ICES symposia, the 6th
Zooplankton Production Symposium which continues anextremely productive series and a proposal for a
Symposium on small pelagic fish tentatively entitled“Drivers of dynamics of small pelagic fish resources” thatwill revisit this very important topic that has once again
emerged at the global research level. Both will take placein 2016 and details on both of these events will be posted
online as they become available. Also, PICES and ICES
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This will ensure a vibrant and responsive organization withexpertise in many areas of North Pacific marine science.
ISB-2014 provided an opportunity for Science Board to
discuss a new project recently funded by the Japanese
Ministry of the Environment (MOE) on the effects oftsunami debris, including invasive species, on the coasts ofNorth America and Hawaii. This new project will becentered on three themes: modeling debris transport;
surveillance and monitoring; and aquatic invasive species.
The project Co-Chairmen are Hideaki Maki (Japan), Nancy
Wallace (USA), and myself. These Co-Chairmen represent
different research areas and will be supported by a Project
Science Team comprised of Hiroshi Kawai and Atsuhiko
Isobae (Japan); Jim Carlton and Amy McFadden (USA);and Robin Brown (Canada). This group will have astrategic planning meeting this summer (bringing together
some colleagues from the Working Group on Nonindigenous Aquatic Species (WG 21). The project isalready underway so please watch for updates in futureissues of PICES Press.

Views from the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel where the FUTURE OpenScience Meeting and ISB-2014 were held.

Science Board also discussed the nominees for both the
Wooster and POMA awards but as you know, these will
not be announced until Yeosu. However, I would like totake this opportunity to remind the PICES community
about these annual awards; consider nominating yourcollaborators/colleagues in future iterations. There is atremendous amount of high-quality research andmonitoring being conducted within PICES and those who
stand out should be recognized.

Capacity attendance at the FUTURE OSM in April.

PICES-2015 will be hosted by China in Qingdao(previously held there in 1995 and 2002). The theme
description “Change and sustainability of the North Pacific”
was finalized shortly after ISB-2014. The PICES2015 website is open (http://pices.int/meetings/annual/PIC
ES-2015/2015-theme.aspx) for submission of topic
sessions and workshops. This new system which we haveused for the past few years has greatly improved theefficiency in evaluating and ranking submitted workshops
and topic sessions. Deadline for submissions is August 18.

Former Science Board Chairman, Dr. Sinjae Yoo, presenting an overview
of FUTURE.

We’ve been very busy as an organization and have an
excellent program developed for PICES-2014 in Yeosu. I
look forward to seeing you at the meeting where the theme
is “Toward a better understanding of the North Pacific:
Reflecting on the past and steering for the future”.

Thomas Therriault
Science Board Chairman

Conversations carried over from the OSM rooms to poolside.

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More attractive science ecosystem design for FUTURE and beyond:
A personal view from a researcher in a peripheral fieldby Shoshiro Minobe
The central topic of the PICES FUTURE science programis ecosystems, and interestingly, the importance of the term
“ecosystem” has rapidly increased during the last halfdecade in the business world, particularly in theinformation technology (IT) field, where it has a quite
different meaning from that used in PICES. In a simplified
view, an IT ecosystem is an interaction system among IT
vendors (e.g., Apple or Google), third-party softwaredevelopers and service providers (hereinafter, providers),
users, and investors. If an ecosystem is attractive, a larger
number of providers will join it with the help of investors,
which in turn provides better and more desirable “apps”(software applications) or services than in otherecosystems. Such an ecosystem attracts a larger number ofusers, and this movement further drives more providers andinvestors to join the ecosystem. It should be apparent that
ecosystem development in business involves positive
feedback—the so-called snowball effect—and therefore, agood design for an ecosystem is crucial for its continuing
development.

models and data sets) produced by internal researchers byreviewing and citing papers and by reviewing research
proposals.
By making this analogy between science ecosystems andIT ecosystems, it becomes apparent that the design ofscience ecosystems is a crucial factor in attracting
researchers and facilitating their work. A primary strategy
commonly used by science organizations and projects is todetermine some direction, such as by setting importantresearch topics and establishing working groups, and thenhope that researchers actually work along those directions
by obtaining funding from the usual funding agencies ofeach country and the institute’s internal research budget.
This strategy works when two conditions are met:(1) researchers are motivated to do research in those
directions; and (2) the researchers can obtain funding for
conducting the actual research.
I will begin with the first condition. What kind of research
topic is motivating to researchers? This can be an overly
broad question, and so I would like to pose a more specificquestion that would be appropriate for multidisciplinaryorganizations and projects such as FUTURE: Is a
researcher motivated more strongly by a research topic forwhich one can play a leading role, or by a topic for which
one plays a secondary or smaller role? If researchers needto spend substantial time and money on a topic, then I
believe that researchers will want a leading role. Suchleading activities give a researcher career achievements andpublications, which influence future evaluations frompeers, improve the ability to secure funding, and canultimately determine the trajectory of a career. Of course,
sometimes it is desirable to play a secondary role.
Personally, I have enjoyed being a co-author of ecosystem
papers, contributing by analyzing physical climate data toelucidate linkages in the ecosystem data provided bymarine ecosystem researchers. For me, such experiences
are wonderful and bring a broader perspective, but mydevotion to them cannot be equally compared with studies
in which I play a leading role.

Similarly, we can argue that science organizations andprojects such as PICES and FUTURE have their own
ecosystems. In a simplified form, a science ecosystem
consists of a science organization or project and its internal
researchers (providers); external researchers and otherstakeholders (users); and the funding agencies and homeinstitutes of researchers that provide research funds(investors). The IT ecosystem metaphor is useful when
considering science ecosystems because of several
important points of commonality. First, providers andresearchers can choose which ecosystems to join. For an
IT/science ecosystem, most providers and researchers canmove relatively freely among ecosystems. This mobility
may be the most important difference between IT/science
ecosystems and biological ecosystems. In biologicalecosystems, species do not have the freedom to select anecosystem. Second, IT vendors and science organizations
cannot directly control the behavior of providers andresearchers, respectively, because the former does notdirectly pay the latter. Of course, there are somenoteworthy differences between science and IT ecosystems.
In a science ecosystem, money used for research comesfrom investors and not from users; in an IT ecosystem, incontrast, the role of investors is relatively small because
users pay the providers for apps and services. Despite thedifference in the relation of users to money, users ofscience and IT ecosystems play a common and importantrole. Users in an IT ecosystem evaluate the services andproducts by buying them, while users in a science
ecosystem evaluate science papers and products (e.g.,
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There is an asymmetry among disciplines in opportunities
to assume a leading role according to the goals of specificdisciplines. Typically, for multidisciplinary studies thatinvolve ecosystem researchers and physical researchers, themain goals are in the domain of marine ecosystems, andthus physical researchers play only a secondary or service
role. Collaborative research between physical researchers
and biological researchers thus entails a collaboration inwhich physical researchers assist the ecosystem researchers
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in their goals. This assist-goal asymmetry needs to beclearly recognized if a good research ecosystem design isto be achieved. Furthermore, for such collaborations,
physical researchers have to be invited to join, that is, thisis a passive collaboration for the physical researchers. An
uninvited physical researcher has nothing to do but wait. To
motivate those researchers whose role is to assist inreaching an overarching goal, it is important to set visible
intermediate goals, such as specific research topic
questions on which the researchers actively play leadingroles and do not need to wait to be invited. Intermediate
goals must be adequate for publishing scientific papers anddeveloping research proposals for researchers who work
toward these goals. Such intermediate goals are morenecessary for the peripheral disciplines than for the central
disciplines in a research ecosystem because the primarygoals are usually squarely within the central disciplines.
By working on those intermediate goals, the peripheral
discipline researchers (here, physical researchers) cancontribute to the achievement of the overall goals for the
project actively.

or project should advertise widely to users by multiple
methods, such as the web, brochures, and sessions or town
hall meetings at major conferences. In addition toincreasing the likelihood of funding, selling a topic to abroader audience is attractive even for internal researchers
because such promotion can increase the impact of theresearcher’s studies.
A natural question at this point is whether PICES does agood job of marketing its science to users. The answer
depends on the discipline. FUTURE is targeted to marine
ecosystems, and so it is reasonable that the influence isgreater in marine ecosystem studies than in physicaloceanography and climate research, to which my own
experience is limited. I would imagine that questions listed
in the FUTURE Science Plan may be useful for funding
proposals in marine ecosystem studies. Unfortunately, it isdifficult for me to use the FUTURE Science Plan and
Implementation Plan in my own funding proposals, which
will be reviewed by physical oceanographers or
meteorologists in a Japanese funding system similar to thatof the United States’ National Science Foundation. Thisdifficulty is associated with the lack of intermediate goals
in physical disciplines, as discussed above. The
advertisement of the FUTURE Science Plan to the broader
research community is not bad, but there is room forfurther improvement. For example, the World Climate
Research Program’s ocean-related core project CLIVAR(Climate and Oceans: Variability, Predictability andChange) advertises their science to external scientists in a
number of major science conferences such as the American
Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meeting, the American
Meteorological Society annual meeting, and the Ocean
Sciences Meeting. CLIVAR also provides an impressive
web page describing their research themes, which arecalled research foci, and a beautiful brochure. In fact, I
noticed a research focus of regional sea-level rise that
seemed likely to have a good chance of getting funding,even though I have not been actually involved in it. A
funding proposal that I wrote in association with that focus
successfully received modest four-year funding.

Let us now discuss point (2): How can scienceorganizations and projects help to increase the chances ofobtaining funding? This is important because “no funding”
often means “no research,” especially for researchers who
have to depend on outside funding. From the above
discussion on the leading and assistive roles, it is apparent
that science organizations or projects must establish
intermediate goals for a peripheral discipline, if they wantresearchers in those peripheral disciplines to contribute tothe overarching goals with funding they can use for thosegoals. Without intermediate goals, peripheral researchers
cannot write their own funding proposals. Anotherimportant point is to increase funding opportunities;
science organizations and projects must advertise and sell
their science to users. If users such as external researchers
are impressed by the research direction and results, thenthis will cause a favorable evaluation of the direction in thescience community. Additionally, external researchers may
act as reviewers of funding proposals. In some countries, it
is also important to attract the attention of funding
agencies.

In summary, thinking in terms of ecosystems for scienceorganizations and projects is useful. It is necessary toprovide topics that motivate researchers in multiple
disciplines to actively engage in the science of anorganization or a project, and this may require settingintermediate goals for peripheral disciplines so that
researchers in those disciplines do not have to passively
wait to be invited to participate. From a funding
perspective, intermediate goals for those disciplines canprovide a niche in which peripheral science species cansurvive.

In order to sell science to outsiders, the science must be
packaged in a concise, marketable form, widely advertised
to broad users, and perhaps at the same time strategicallytargeted to users with specific needs for the products being
developed. For example, long or complex documents canbe difficult for outsiders to read. This difficulty iscompounded in countries where English is not the native
language. Researchers and funding managers in suchcountries, whose reading speed is much slower in English
than in their mother tongue, will be reluctant to readsuperfluous English documents. Therefore, the direction of
the science must be summarized in a short, memorable
form, such as a title or short question. Once the science ispackaged in a saleable form, then the science organization

I should accept responsibility for the lack of intermediate
goals suitable for physical researchers to tackle in the
FUTURE Science Plan because I served as a writing teammember of the plan. At that time, I tried to include some
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activities in the area of physical oceanography that would
be of benefit to marine ecosystem science, but I failed toconvince the other team members. This was partly becauseof my lack of experience and my difficulty with English.
However, another factor may be that at the time of writing
the FUTURE Science Plan, ecosystem thinking was not as
common as it is today. The Science Plan was published in
February 2008, but IT ecosystem thinking became much
more obviously important after the launch of Apple’s App
Store in July 2008.

some regions. It may be difficult to fully include ecosystemthinking in the implementation of the ongoing FUTURE
program with respect to intermediate goals, but it may still
be possible to add some flavors, especially foradvertisements. It should be useful to have FUTURE
sessions or town hall meetings at major science meetings
such as the AGU fall meeting or the Ocean Sciences
Meeting. This would allow us to sell our science to a wider
audience. There are likely to be other, better ideas that I
have not considered to grow a rich and productive
ecosystem in which the various disciplines of PICES can
thrive.

Although the halfway point has been passed in the
FUTURE program, it may still be useful to discuss thescience ecosystem for FUTURE and beyond. In future
projects, it is important to establish intermediate goals forphysical disciplines by identifying topics of common
interest between physical oceanography and marine
ecosystems. For example, mesoscale eddies andsubmesoscale phenomena, which are receiving increasing
attention, are candidates for such topics, as are otherphenomena such as upwelling. Upwellings, including
those that occur in eddies and within the western boundary
currents, are a central topic of CLIVAR’s research focus“Marine biophysical interaction and dynamics of upwellingsystems.” These processes are important in determining
nutrient supply to the euphotic layer, and thus important inbiological production. Upwellings also influence coastal
hypoxia and bring corrosive, acidified water to the shelf in

Acknowledgements
I appreciate all of my PICES colleagues who I have talked
with throughout my career. In particular, the PICES
Secretariat and Dr. Hiroaki Saito, who invited me to join the
FUTURE science writing team, Drs. Mike Foreman and Hal
Batchelder for constructive comments and editing, Drs. Shinichi Ito and Emanuele Di Lorenzo for helpful comments. Here,my aim was to offer criticism that is constructive not negative;
however, if this report offends anyone, I apologize in advance.
PICES is a wonderful organization and I owe a lot to it, but I
believe that PICES can become even more attractive forresearchers in all marine science disciplines and thereby
become more important in the global science arena.

Dr. Shoshiro Minobe (minobe@mail.sci.hokudai.ac.jp) is a Professor at the Graduate School of Sciences, Hokkaido University in
Sapporo, Japan. His overall interest is to understand the ocean’s role in the earth’s climate system, and he is working on decadal
climate variability over the North Pacific, ocean–atmosphere interactions, and recently, biogeochemistry data analysis. Shoshiro was amember of the Science Plan Writing Team for the PICES scientific program, FUTURE, and now co-chairs the Working Group on North
Pacific Climate Variability (WG 27).

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OSM Session on “Identifying multiple pressures and system responses inNorth Pacific marine ecosystems”
by Ian Perry
Marine ecosystems of the North Pacific, both coastal andoffshore, are impacted by multiple pressures, such asincreased temperature, change in iron supply, harmful algal
bloom events, invasive species, hypoxia/eutrophication andocean acidification. These multiple pressures can act
synergistically to change ecosystem structure, function anddynamics in unexpected ways that differ from single
pressure responses. It is also likely that pressures andresponses will vary geographically. A key objective of the
PICES FUTURE science program is the identification andcharacterization of these pressures to facilitate comparative
studies of North Pacific ecosystem responses to multiple
stressors and how these systems might change in the future.
This session had two primary objectives: 1) identify key
stressors and pressures on North Pacific marine ecosystems,
including comparisons as to how these stressors/pressures
may differ in importance in different systems and how they
may be changing in time; and 2) identify ecosystem
responses to these multiple stressors and pressures.
Objective 2 includes understanding how natural and humanperturbations may cascade through ecosystems, andwhether there may be amplifiers or buffers which modify
the effects of perturbations on marine systems. The overall
goal of this session was to contribute to the work of PICES
Working Group 28 on Developing Ecosystem Indicators to
Characterize Ecosystem Responses to Multiple Stressors
and to obtain an overview of the pressures being experienced
by North Pacific marine ecosystems and their impacts on
the marine ecosystems of the North Pacific.

Literature analyses of multiple stressors usually list
between 25 to 50 multiple stressors (Working Group 28 has
been working with an integrated list of about 20 stressors
for its comparative studies). Several presentations by
Working Group 28 members (Takahashi et al., Martone etal., Kulik, Samhouri et al., Zador and Renner, Perry et al.)provided descriptions of multiple stressors in North Pacificmarine ecosystems. The presentation by Perry et al.
concluded that the scientific community is beginning tounderstand issues of sensitivity and exposure of habitats tomultiple stressors (Fig. 3), but there is also consensus that a
lot of questions remain. Early analyses from Working
Group 28 suggest that there are more stressors, and greater
impacts, in coastal than offshore areas. However,comparative studies also suggest there may be a shorter listof important stressors at regional scales. In analysis of
scenarios of cumulative impacts along the coast of British
Columbia, Canada, Clarke-Murray et al. found climatechange impacts overwhelmed all other stressors.

In total, 15 papers were presented in session S1, plus one
by Isabelle Rombouts in a plenary session (Fig. 1). All
presentations demonstrated that multiple stressors arecommon, and that single stressors are rare (e.g., Fig. 2).

Fig. 1 Plenary speaker, Dr. Isabelle Rombouts addressing the audience.

Fig. 2 Example of multiple and cumulative stressors along an ecological gradient from freshwater to marine systems. From Won et al.

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larger fishes than on smaller fishes, causing the ecosystemsize structure to shift towards smaller sizes. Their study,
based on two ecosystem models, indicated that impacts
from bottom-up stressors could range from moderate(–20%) to severe (–60%) depending on changes inphytoplankton. Del Raye and Weng identified a need forphysiological models that use aerobic scope for activity tounderstand interactions between temperature and O2 atdiscrete pCO2.
Based on the presentations and discussions, the session
reached the following conclusions: Ecosystem responses to multiple stressors are nonuniform: a suite of indicators is best to capture adiversity of ecosystem responses.
 Because a diversity of ecosystem responses is expected,
it is essential to clarify which types of ecosystemchanges matter to a pre-specified group of people.
 Interactions between multiple stressors more often
appear to be non-additive (synergistic or antagonistic);
there is the need to understand how predicted ecosystem
responses vary with different assumptions about
interactions between stressors (noting, however, that
there is no substitute for data).
 Climate and fishing provide good examples of how
interactions between stressors can act non-additively insome cases and additively in others to change thedynamics of exploited fish populations.

Fig. 3 Example of a risk plot (Exposure by Sensitivity) of multiple
stressors (20 stressors by 22 habitats) for the Strait of Georgia,
Canada. Color coding represents degrees of inferred relative risk.
Horizontal and vertical bars represent uncertainties derived
across multiple experts. From Perry et al.

Several presentations discussed options for developing
ecosystem indicators to characterise ecosystem responses
to multiple stressors. Boldt et al. outlined a number ofrequirements for such indicators. These include the need todefine strategic goals and ecological or management
objectives for these indicators, and the need for a suite ofintegrative indicators that would cover key components andgradients at the appropriate spatial scales. It was also
recognised that mechanistic approaches can give insights
into how pressures are likely to interact and how impacts
may become observable. The synthesis of indicator statusacross multiple trophic levels may reveal broad-scalechanges in the environment that may have importantbiological and management implications. For example,
upper trophic level organisms such as seabirds and halibut
may serve as integrative indicators that can provide nearreal time cues of environmental state (Zador and Rennerpresentation).

Different approaches may be needed for situations withdifferent degrees of complexity. For example, data-driven
evaluations are obviously to be preferred for situations
where data are available (in space, time, and types ofvariables). Expert opinion may be necessary when thefocus is on broad spatial scales, although care should betaken to verify these opinions with data or other experts
when possible.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the other S1 co-convenors, Vladimir
Kulik, Rebecca Martone, Jameal Sambouri and Motomitsu
Takahashi for their contributions in organizing and chairing
this session.

Multiple stressors might interact in additive, synergistic, or
antagonistic ways. An analysis of interaction type from 171
studies that manipulated 2 or more stressors found that
26% identified additive interactions, which are mostcommonly used in model studies of stressor interactions,but that 36% and 38% of the studies identified synergistic
or antagonistic interactions, respectively (Crain et al. 2008,
Ecology Letters). Examples presented during this session
included the paper by Jung, who concluded that intensive
fishing activities by Korean trawlers could have aggravatedthe potential resilience of the filefish stock, causing it tocollapse when the climate changed; and the paper by
Polovina and Woodworth-Jefcoats, who concluded that
top-down responses in the Central North Pacific ecosystemmeans that fishing and potentially bottom-up climate
impacts are likely to have stronger negative impacts on theSummer 2014

Dr. Ian Perry (Ian.Perry@dfo-mpo.gc.ca) is a research scientist
with Fisheries and Oceans Canada at the Pacific Biological
Station in Nanaimo, British Columbia. His research includes the
structure and function of marine ecosystems and the developmentof ecosystem approaches to management of these systems.

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PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2

OSM Session on “Regional climate modeling in the North Pacific”
by Enrique Curchitser and Chan Joo Jang
Dr. Miller presented results from a coupled ocean–
atmosphere regional model of the Kuroshio Extension
region, which is characterized by energetic oceanic eddies
and fronts. He explored mechanisms for air–sea couplingof high-resolution components and highlighted theimportant role of the ocean in forcing the atmosphere on
regional scales.

A session exploring regional climate modeling in the North
Pacific was convened on April 15, 2014, at the FUTURE
Open Science Meeting (on the Big Island of Hawaii) toreport progress made towards the goals of the FUTURE
science program. Session S2 was an opportunity formembers of the PICES Working Group on Regional
Climate Modeling (WG 29) to summarize their activities
and develop links to other FUTURE efforts.

Dr. Mochizuki discussed the role of internal model variability
to future projections using global models, in particular forthe coming decades. He concluded that accurate initial andboundary conditions are essential for developing reliable
decadal-scale climate projections.

The topic of regional climate models has generated interestin the PICES community since it recognizes the need toboth explore the implications of the global IPCC-classmodels for PICES member countries and assess state-ofthe-science techniques for downscaling global models.
Regional downscaling—effectively running models withhigher spatial resolution in target areas—of global models
is a means of representing climate on time and space scales
more appropriate for socio-economic and coastal ocean
studies. WG 29 has been focusing on ocean processes andthe implications to marine ecosystems.

Other abstracts in the session considered diverse topics andapproaches: downscaled projections of future climate in
the California Current (Dr. Francisco Werner); the role ofmodel resolution on the air–sea CO2 exchange (Dr. Jerome
Fiechter et al.); regional biogeochemical downscaling incoastal British Columbia (Dr. Angelica Peña et al.);ensemble regional predictions in the Bering Sea (Dr. Albert
Hermann et al.); dynamical downscaling of global models
in the western Pacific (Dr. Chan Joo Jang); the role of awave mixing parameterization in improving projections(Dr. Fangli Qiao) and a look at a global 1/10° model.

The session was co-convened by Drs. Enrique Curchitser(Rutgers University, USA) and Chan Joo Chang (KIOST,
Korea) and had three invited speakers, Drs. Michael
Foreman (Institute of Ocean Sciences, Canada), Arthur
Miller (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA) and
Takashi Mochizuki (JAMSTEC, Japan) and a total of 11
contributed papers. In the first invited presentation, given
at the plenary session, Dr. Foreman described new techniques
for downscaling climate projections for coastal, coupledphysical–biological studies. The technique relies on bias
correction of winds from global-scale future projections
based on seasonal historical patterns. He demonstrated an
application of this technique to the coast of British
Columbia where both wind magnitude and direction are
crucial to determining the patterns of coastal circulation.

Dr. Fangli Qiao (First Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic
Administration, China) comparing mixed layer depths of two different
oceans with and without wave effects.

Overall, the presentations can be categorized into threemain topics: 1) additional value (e.g., addressing known
biases, coastal currents, etc.) derived from regional climate
models, 2) regional projections of future climate and3) applications of regional downscaling to ecosystem studies.
The main topic during the open discussion period focusedon the question of what resolution is desirable in regional
studies. The participants noted that the answer may depend

Co-Convenor, Dr. Chan Joo Jang (KIOST, Korea), introducing the list ofpresentations for the theme session.

(Continued on page 15)

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OSM Session on “Challenges in communicating science and engaging the public”
by Phillip R. Mundy and Harold P. Batchelder
The FUTURE OSM session on the afternoon of April 15,
2014, was organized by the Advisory Panel on Status,
Outlooks, Forecasts and Engagement (AP-SOFE) to
showcase examples of the FUTURE goal of engaging
human societies by providing useful products on ecosystemchange. SOFE has found that such products are typicallydelivered by a four-step process that consists of1) identifying climate driven ecosystem services,2) defining processes and relationships between climate
and ecosystem services, 3) developing products based on
the relationships, and 4) developing timely and reliablecommunication with stakeholders. Stakeholders are thetarget audience for whom the products are intended.
Stakeholders are, by and large, people who make decisions
regarding human uses of living marine resources (LMR)
and the habitats on which the LMR depend. These
stakeholders function at various levels of resource use andregulation, from the top government policy-makers whoprescribe the principles on which resources are to be
regulated, through the managers who apply the regulations,to the individuals who work within the regulations in thecourse of earning a living. To take some examples,stakeholders are individual fisherman who need to know
where and when to fish for particular species, or fishery
managers who need to inform harvest decisions that resultin the long-term sustainability of those species. Other
examples of decision-makers in need of climate-change
products include those who regulate sensitive coastal
habitats and the policy-makers who develop the regulations
governing human activities in coastal zones. Regardless ofthe specific human activities that depend on LMR, andregardless of differences in national approaches, allstakeholders need trustworthy information about how
climate drives the ocean-provided services with which they
are concerned, which in turn requires effective
communication at all levels.

to integrate the complex suite of environmental drivers ofnatural resources to effectively communicate theconsequences of climate change on LMR was addressed by
one talk (Zhang et al.).
The keynote talk of Bill Peterson (USA) in the morning
plenary session, “A case study from the northern California
Current”, illustrated SOFE’s four-step process for
producing useful products on climate driven LMR.
Improvements in salmon management have been achievedby communicating more precise estimates of the numbersof salmon available to the fisheries. Increases in precision
have been made possible by considering ocean conditionsin the first summer of ocean entry, including hydrography
and forage base from a long-term set of observations (now19 years). Outlooks (the O in SOFE), or qualitative
forecasts of coho and spring Chinook salmon adultabundance, and corresponding quantitative forecasts (the F
in SOFE) have been developed based on a multivariate
suite of ocean and ecological indicators. Simple-tounderstand qualitative aids to communication include“stoplight charts” with green indicating favorable, yellow
intermediate, and red unfavorable conditions of a particular
input indicator. Years with many favorable (green lights)
should be ocean entry years that favor survival of salmon,
and predictions might indicate high returns of coho thefollowing year, and of Chinook in two years. These aids
are quantitatively supported on the web site withdescriptions of the indicator and why it is related to salmon
survival—usually described mechanistically as top-down
or bottom-up linkages in the marine food web.

Effective communication is the common theme that unites
the eight presentations and the preceding keynote addressof Session S3 on “Challenges in communicating scienceand engaging the public”. The keynote address and twoother talks provided examples of communicating effectively
with stakeholders to understand the products necessary todeal with climate driven resources (Peterson et al., Ito and
Yamada, Orsi and Mundy). Three of the talks wereconcerned with building consensus among stakeholders
through effective communication using diverse methods ofreaching common understandings (Seino, Barbeaux and
Lee, Volk et al.). In the realm of human dimensions, two of
the talks dealt with communicating effectively throughunderstanding the diversity of values and motivations
among stakeholders (Yagi et al., Kurilova). Using models
Summer 2014

S3 Plenary speaker, Dr. William Peterson, speaking on the three pillars of
SOFE related to providing management advice on Columbia River salmon.

Communication of the qualitative and quantitative
information is through oral presentations to the public andmanagers. Uptake of the approach has been mixed, withsome audiences very receptive, while others are reticent toalter the existing practices to salmon return forecasting,even in light of evidence that the approach may be more12

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PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2
depends. Set net fisheries, especially those targeting
salmon, are key fishing industries in coastal villages ofnortheastern Japan. Illustrating SOFE’s four-step process,the problem was identified as environmentally damaged
fisheries, the solution was to apply advanced technologies
to recover the former marine harvest capacity, the approach
was to build monitoring based on the needs of fisherman
for ocean data, and the problem was solved bycommunicating to the fishers the information in real-timefrom sensors using phone apps and the web. Identified key
data sets for the set net fishery were current velocity, wave
height and direction, and wind velocity and direction. Highcurrent velocities can submerge the trap making recovery
difficult and enabling escapement of trapped fish, and dataon waves and winds is used to plan recoveries of gear.
Prior to the tsunami, most implemented monitoring was fortemperature (and mostly for aquaculture needs), but
aquaculture and fishers are able to get temperature datafrom other sources, whereas current velocities are notreadily available elsewhere.
Conversations with thestakeholders identified a previously unknown priority to set
net fishers, which could be met in deploying replacementmonitoring systems. Peterson, Orsi and Mundy and Ito and
Yamada provided compelling real-world examples of thevalue of the types of scientist-stakeholder engagement for
which SOFE was established.

reliable, and because of a concern that the underlying data
supporting the approach are produced by a research
program rather than on an ongoing permanently funded
operational basis.
Emphasizing the points made in Peterson’s keynote, Orsiand Mundy (both USA; presented by Joseph Orsi) and Itoand Yamada (Japan) also illustrated by example the fourstep process of SOFE in direct application to fishery
management. Orsi and Mundy use data types and methods
identical to those of Peterson over longer periods of time,
applying physical and biological oceanographic observations
to provide qualitative and quantitative forecasts thatenhance fishery management capabilities. Orsi reported on
his research resulting in a pink salmon abundance forecast
for southeast Alaska that has been issued for eleven years(since 2004) based on a fisheries oceanography study thatstarted in 1998 (17 years). The unprecedented precision of
the annual pink salmon forecast has enabled the fishingindustry to better prepare for the large fluctuations inannual abundance typical of pink salmon fisheries. BothPeterson and Orsi and Mundy identify approaches based on
ocean sampling of the early marine life cycle stage of
salmon to enable fishery management with more precise
forecasts of abundance in the subsequent fisheries. Orsi
also described Mundy’s use of a long time series (52 years)of physical and biological observations to pinpoint thetiming of marine exit of Chinook salmon, which allows
fishery managers to estimate the abundance of the Chinook
returns using data from the freshwater fisheries. BothPeterson and Orsi and Mundy communicate the uncertainty
associated with quantitative harvest forecasts using simple
qualitative rankings, various kinds of meetings, and via theweb.

An important aspect of effective communication is building
consensus among stakeholders using diverse methods toreach common understandings. Presentations by Seino,
Barbeaux and Lee, and Volk et al. provided examples ofthis critical aspect of SOFE’s four-step process fordeveloping useful products to inform stakeholders aboutclimate change. Seino (Japan) introduced the topic bydescribing how several international conventions andtreaties, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity,and international trends, such as in coastal and wetland
conservation,
haveenablednew
multi-sectorial
environmental conservation and restoration frameworks inJapan. Seino noted that domestic coastal environmental
issues have become very complicated, and social sectors
are demanding more integrated approaches to management
and increased communications across sectors. Seacoast
habitats, especially rocky shores, are of immense culturaland aesthetic value in Japan. For example rocky coastal
areas are the workplace of highly respected and iconic
elderly women who gather seaweed and harvest shellfish.
Communication between managers and their constituents isimportant in shaping the evolution of coastal policy inJapan. Building consensus among stakeholders was
highlighted by Volk et al. (USA), who described theexhaustive process and intricate organizational frameworkthat was essential to effectively communicate with diverse
stakeholders who were concerned about inequities ofregional harvest patterns of chum and sockeye salmon in
the fisheries of Western Alaska. The Western Alaska
Salmon Stock Identification Program (WASSIP) was
implemented to inform participants regarding the origin of

Dr. Shin-ichi Ito describing the information needs of the set net fishery.

Using an approach similar to that of Peterson et al. andOrsi and Mundy, Ito and Yamada (Japan) used ocean data
to enable coastal fisheries in the area most impacted by the2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
Demonstrating the tightly environmentally dependent
nature of these fisheries, the tsunami severely damaged
fishery production by destroying vessels and gear and theharbors and aquaculture facilities on which production
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MA). For people in both coastal and inland areas, cultural
benefits were most linked to behavioral intentions,
including funding marine conservation—even more so thanessential benefits. Cultural benefits, moreover, were theonly significant influence in inland regions. Conversely,
essential benefits also influenced behavior in coastal
populations. The survey results suggest that enhancementof cultural benefits will most impact future marine
conservation efforts.
Reinforcing the importance ofunderstanding the values and motivations of stakeholders,
Kurilova (Russia) described that the mechanism ofcommunication in remote coastal Russian communities
depends on the strong regional cultural differences of small
ethnic communities, which often have unique local
concerns. Her conclusion was that the message andmethod of communication depends on the audience;
therefore, understanding the diversity of values andmotivations among stakeholders that directly determine thelevel of satisfaction from ecosystem services is essential toeffective communications.

salmon in commercial and subsistence salmon fisheries.
Residents of western Alaska were very concerned thatfisheries in other parts of Alaska were removing so manysalmon that their opportunity to harvest was precluded.
WASSIP used accepted genetic methods to identify theorigins of salmon in the contested areas, thereby gaining
widespread trust among regional interests. The key tosuccess at resolving the disputes was effective
communication with stakeholders about the fundamentals
of sampling design and statistical analysis protocols. The
common understandings achieved on the reliability ofsampling and statistical methods of analysis satisfied
stakeholder concerns to the extent that the results were
accepted as a basis for agreement. Consensus building
between managers and harvesters was further illustrated by
Barbeaux (USA), who described joint USA-Korea
cooperative research projects using Korean managed
fisheries. The research was intended not only to collectdata for fisheries management, but also to foster
communication and broaden stakeholder engagement infisheries research. Consensus was achieved by developinga trusted common data base, as was also the key to successon the studies described by Seino and Volk et al. The
respected common database was built by providing
relatively inexpensive temperature loggers on fishing gear(headropes of commercial trawlers; red snow crab pots; andsoon commercial longliners and purse seines).
Opportunistic acoustic data archiving to hard drives wascollected to describe animal density, depth and seasonal
distribution. Lessons learned from the consensus-building
exercise are that fisherman and stakeholders in Korea andUSA are eager to participate in cooperative monitoring/
research, that stakeholders develop greater trust in science
when engaged in data collection, and that the resulting
consensus improves communication. In addition, formulating
and communicating clear and reasonable objectives forresearchers and participating stakeholders is essential tosuccessful participatory science, as is developing realistic
expectations among fishers and managers.
Culturaldifferences matter. For instance, in Korea, small mistakes
are more likely to discourage stakeholder cooperation,
whereas in the USA, such missteps are considered learning
opportunities that contribute to the successful evolution ofconsensus building projects.

Models are a powerful means of effectively communicating
the consequences of climate change on living marine
resources and the human uses of those resources. Zhang(Korea) described the current status of Integrated Fisheries
Risk Analysis Method for Ecosystems (IFRAME) as aframework supporting ecosystem approach for fishing. He
reviewed the ecosystem effects of fishing, which inaddition to harvest mortality (the direct effect), haveindirect, perhaps undesirable side effects of bycatch,
habitat modification or destruction, and biologicalinteractions. IFRAME involves assessment of ecosystem
structure and risk, forecasting structure and risk, andevaluating and implementing management. The
implementation is iterative, with feedbacks frommanagement on assessment and forecasting. New to
IFRAME is the use of semi-quantitative or qualitative
analysis when knowledge level of the ecological systems islow. Zhang showed examples of how IFRAME methods
contribute to FUTURE objectives and questions, how
AICE and COVE could contribute to the assessments,
forecasting and management aspects, and how SOFE
should be used to disseminate outlooks and forecasts fromIFRAME, and solicit feedback from management strategies.

In the realm of human dimensions, the session establishedthe principle that communicating effectively requires
understanding the diversity of values and motivations
among stakeholders (Yagi et al., Kurilova). Yagi (Japan)
contrasted the results of a socioeconomic survey of coastal
and inland communities in Japan regarding the importanceof marine ecosystem services and its influence on humanbehavior.
He identified three factors important inregulating behaviors with regard to marine ecosystemservices: essential benefits (supporting services of theMillenium Ecosystem Assessment [MA]), indirect benefits(analogous to regulating and provisioning services of MA),and cultural benefits (corresponding to cultural benefits of

Dr. Phil Mundy, one of the co-convenors of S3, addressing the audience.

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PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2
premise. A potential stumbling block for extending theapplication of the FUTURE premise is the daunting natureof the data collection efforts necessary to build the longtime series of observations that underpinned the examples
of success presented in this session. Moving toward fulloperational status will require secure long-term funding tocontinue the observational framework that enables
forecasts and outlooks of the type described in this session.

Each of the nine presentations described above illustrates
successful application of SOFE’s four-step process forfulfilling the FUTURE premise that it is possible to deliveruseful and timely products on climate driven ecosystemchange to resource stakeholders. The validity of thispremise was a cornerstone of the rationale for creating the
PICES FUTURE program. The session has provided
extensive examples that validate the fundamental FUTURE

Dr. Phillip Mundy (Phil.mundy@noaa.gov) is Director of Auke Bay Laboratories (ABL), Juneau, Alaska. As adivision of NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center, ABL collects observations on the physical and biologicalproperties of the Gulf of Alaska, Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas to provide information for management of living
marine resources. Phil received his Ph.D. in Fisheries Science from the University of Washington. He served on thefaculty of Old Dominion University and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has served as a scientific advisor to
the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and the Pacific Salmon Commission. Phil was a charter member of
the North Pacific Research Board who contributed to developing the Bering Sea Integrated Ecosystem Research
Program. His most compelling current interest is implementing the ecosystem approach to management in the
Arctic, which he pursues as a U.S. delegate to the Arctic Council. In PICES, he serves as Chairman of the Advisory
Panel on Status, Outlooks, Forecasts, and Engagement and Advisory Panel on the Continuous Plankton Recorder
Survey in the North Pacific, and is a member of Science Board and MONITOR.
Dr. Hal Batchelder (hbatch@pices.int) is the Deputy Executive Secretary of PICES (since February 2014). Prior
to assuming that position he was a Professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS)
at Oregon State University. Hal has contributed to PICES in diverse ways previously: Co-chairman of the
Climate Change and Carrying Capacity integrative science program and Science Board member; member ofseveral study groups and working groups; member of AP-SOFE; and U.S. delegate to the PICES Governing
Council. His research specialization is biological oceanography and ocean ecology, with emphasis on
zooplankton population and community ecology, and the coupling of ecological processes to ocean physics using
numerical models. Recent interests have included design of Marine Protected Areas, and the changing incidenceof hypoxia on the U.S. west coast and its potential impacts on shelf organisms.
(Continued from page 11)

expected number of ensemble members and the need for
multi-model ensembles. Finally, the participants discussed
the topic of bias propagation from global to regional models
and from physics to biogeochemistry. The discussion
focused on ways to identify and quantify model biases inthe different model components.

on the region and dynamics of interest. Furthermore, it
may be necessary to adjust model resolution after an initial
exploratory investigation.
Another topic during thediscussion was on the need and future of ensemble
modeling in regional settings and the unique challenges
that could emerge. Of note was the conversation on the

Dr. Enrique Curchitser (enrique@esm.rutgers.edu) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Environmental Sciences and theInstitute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University, USA. His main research interests are at the intersection of climate andecosystems. His current projects range from downscaled coupled bio-physical modeling in the California Current and Bering Sea, theimpact of climate change on coral bleaching in the Coral Triangle and on the role of the Gulf Stream in the climate and social systems ofthe northeast U.S. He is a member of the PICES Physical Oceanography and Climate Committee, Working Group 27 on Climate
Variability and Change in the North Pacific and co-chairs Working Group 29 on Regional Climate Models.
Dr. Jang Joo Chan (cjjang@kiost.ac) has been a Principal Research Scientist in the Ocean Circulation and Climate Research Divisionof the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology since 2011. His research interests include analysis and modeling of climatechange in the North Pacific Ocean, focusing on Korean waters, circulation–ecosystem couple modeling, and turbulence modeling. He isa member of the PICES Physical Oceanography and Climate Committee, Working Group 27 on Climate Variability and Change in the
North Pacific and co-chairs Working Group 29 on Regional Climate Models.

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OSM Sessions on “Ecosystem status, trends, and forecasts” and“Ecosystem resilience and vulnerability”
by Thomas Therriault and Hiroaki Saito
to trends, she used subtropical monitoring sites (BATS andHOT) to show that with increased warming, the biologicalpump is changing. Lastly, she argued the importance ofunderstanding the mechanisms responsible for change aswell as documenting changes in status and trend.

Marine ecosystems are constantly changing. Therefore,
researchers need to develop and to communicate
information on ecosystem status, trends, and forecasts toensure that sound management and policy decisions are
made for the benefit of the societies that depend on them.
Ecosystem indicators are one way to communicate suchinformation, but the selection of the most appropriate
indicators can prove challenging, especially given an
increasingly complex array of audiences. It is likely thatdifferent indicators will be needed where the scale ofecosystem responses to different stressors must bereconciled with the scale of the perturbation (e.g., coastal
versus oceanic). Forecasting ecosystem change demands
good understanding of how multiple stressors affectecosystem structure and function. A key element of the
FUTURE program is the ability to convey to diverse
audiences, in each of the PICES member countries,
ecosystem status, trends and forecasts. Session S4 on“Ecosystem status, trends and forecasts” explored current
and proposed ecosystem status and trend indicators,
including some already in use in the North Pacific
Ecosystem Status Reports, and attempted to identify
metrics required in support of ecosystem forecasts.
The plenary speaker, Dr. Deborah Steinberg, did an
excellent job setting the stage for this topic session by
giving a talk entitled “Ecosystem comparison of trends inzooplankton community structure and role inbiogeochemical cycling”. She presented an overview ofthe status of spatial variation in zooplankton biomass andimplications for the biological pump that can becharacterized by community structure. She then highlighted
patterns of eutrophic and oligotrophic regions and provided
links to climate indices or sea ice dynamics. With respect

In the breakout session there were talks by Drs. Sanae
Chiba and Sonia Batten that demonstrated how long-term
zooplankton data sets could be analysed to find trends andpatterns with respect to distribution. Dr. Chiba showed thatthe diversity index was correlated with the Kuroshio
Extension Current strength (1960–1988), but that thisrelationship broke down during the oceanographic regime
shift that followed this period. Dr. Batten explained how
various indices obtained from Continuous Plankton
Recorder (CPR) samples, such as the phytoplankton colour
index, total diatom biomass, timing of the spring diatom
bloom, warm-water copepod abundance, etc., could
indicate ecosystem regime shifts. Talks by Drs. Douding
Lu and Ichiro Imai assessed the trends and status ofharmful algal blooms (HABs) by means of retrospective
analysis of HAB data sets. Dr. Lu showed how increasing
HAB events in Chinese coastal waters were related toincreasing anthropogenic activity, such as eutrophication,
ballast water, or aquaculture. Similarly, Dr. Imaidemonstrated how new water quality regulations reduced
eutrophication, improved water quality in the Seto InlandSea, Japan, and decreased the number of HAB events. The
session also had talks about status, trends, and forecasts forhigher trophic levels. Dr. Jongjun Tian suggested an
ecological indicator as an early warning signal forforecasting the future (current) regime shift. He was able
to demonstrate how fish assemblage data were used todetect five past regime shifts (1911, 1934, 1963, 1975 andS4 plenary speaker, Dr. Deborah Steinberg, addressing session participantson ecosystem cross-comparisons of zooplankton communities.

S4 speaker, Dr. Ichiro Imai, discussing long-term trends of red tides andtoxic blooms in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan.

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1988) and that these coincided with shifts in sea surface
temperature and a climate index. Dr. Jon Brodziak used a
striped marlin dataset to introduce participants to a new“steepness” index which can quantify population resilience,and be used to set biological reference points, such as
maximum sustainable yield. Drs. Haruka Nishikawa andSuam Kim talked about ways to develop fishery forecasts
for commercial target species (neon flying squid, Pacificflying squid) under global warming scenarios. Lastly, Dr.
Hiroaki Saito’s talk provided a nice summary of the session
by considering mechanisms of fish species alternation in
the western North Pacific which were induced by changes
in the wind field in the central-eastern North Pacific. He
pointed out the weaknesses of fisheries as a modern
industry, i.e., unplanned high variability, and that
forecasting future changes in marine ecosystem andfisheries production is likely the most effective way tomitigate intrinsic weaknesses in modern fisheries. Clearly
our understanding of the mechanisms creating observed
ecosystem variation is still limited. Much remains to be done
to “understand the mechanisms behind status and trends”
and to “forecast future states”, as these are essential science
contributions to society.

S6 plenary speaker, Dr. Beth Fulton, chatting with Robin Brown during
coffee break.

Marine ecosystems around the globe are affected bynumerous natural and anthropogenic stressors.
The
interactions among stressors are incredibly complex andproving difficult to understand. Ultimately, these stressors
will change ecosystem structure and function. This canlead to changes in ecosystem stability and productivity, andimpact the societies that depend on them. One of thecentral themes of the FUTURE Science Plan focuses on
ecosystem resiliency and vulnerability to natural andanthropogenic stressors and poses the question how
ecosystems around the North Pacific might change in the
future. Thus, the ability to understand how resilient marine
ecosystems are and to characterize the degree to whichecosystems are vulnerable to change via multiple stressors
is critical to advancing the FUTURE program. Session S6
on “Ecosystem resilience and vulnerability” attracted onlya single submitted oral presentation, perhaps indicating thedifficulty in quantifying resilience and vulnerability inmarine systems with diverse stressors. Because of thisproblem, there has been little attention devoted to theseissues to date in PICES. Dr. Beth Fulton exploredresilience in a plenary talk titled “Exactly how resilient areecosystems?”.

Dr. Hiroaki Saito providing the final talk of Session S4.

Dr. Thomas Therriault (Thomas.Therriault@dfo-mpo.gc.ca) is a Research Scientist with Fisheries andOceans Canada (DFO) at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Tom is working on anumber of aquatic invasive species research questions both within DFO and through the second CanadianAquatic Invasive Species Network (CAISN II). He was the Principal Investigator for the Taxonomy Initiativeof PICES Working Group 21 on Non-indigenous Aquatic Species that includes rapid assessment surveys for
non-indigenous species. Within PICES, Tom now serves as Chairman of Science Board.

Dr. Hiroaki Saito (hsaito@aori.u-tokyo.ac.jp) is an Associate Professor at the Atmosphere and Ocean
Research Institute, the University of Tokyo. He has a broad range of interests but his focus lies in the role ofmarine organisms in food-web dynamics and biogeochemical cycles. He is one of the establishing membersof the A-line monitoring programme for the western North Pacific. He was a core member of the SEEDS I, II
and SERIES Fe fertilization experiments, led the DEEP (2002 2007), SUPRFISH (2007–2012) projects, andis leading the SKED project (2011–2021). He has also been involved in IMBER, and was Chairman of
IMBER-Japan from 2004–2008. In PICES, Hiroaki has been a member of several expert groups. He iscurrently a member of the BIO Committee and SG-SC-NP, is Chairman of the FUTURE AP-COVE, and isVice-Chairman of Science Board.

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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 changing
climate” 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 mobile
species. He advocated more place-based forecasts of fish
communities. 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 are
projected 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 changing
climate”, 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. The
speaker recommended that the “climate savvy” ecosystemapproach will include vulnerability and risk assessments,
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Dr. Manuel Barange (UK) discussing climate change impacts on fisheries
production.

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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 Alaska
Fisheries 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 and
SCOR. 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 and
Chairman 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/PICES
Strategic Initiative (Section) on Climate Change Effects on Marine Ecosystems and is a founding member of the Global Partnership for
Climate, Fisheries and Aquaculture (PaCFA).

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OSM Workshop on “Top predators as indicators of climate change:
Statistical techniques, challenges and opportunities”
by Elliott Hazen, Rob Suryan, Takashi Yamamoto and Steven Bograd
Top predators such as fish, turtles, marine mammals, andseabirds integrate multiple lower trophic level processes
and can also exert top-down control of marine food webs.
Climate change and variability affect the timing andproductivity of pelagic ecosystems. This variability is
integrated into the life histories of top predators, potentiallyaffecting their breeding patterns, migration strategies, diets,and ultimately, fitness and reproductive success. PanPacific data about top predators are generated by surveys,
animal tracking studies, dietary analyses, and measurements of reproductive performance. Environmental andclimate data can be synthesized and compared to ecosystem
responses in many locations. To incorporate top predators
into our understanding of climate change impacts on
marine ecosystems and to support the objectives of
FUTURE, the PICES Advisory Panel on Marine Birds andMammals (AP-MBM) with joint support from IMBER’s
regional program, CLIOTOP (Climate Impacts on Oceanic
Top Predators), convened this workshop to examine how
top predators have responded, and are predicted to respond,
to climatic variability and long term change.

 Identify sentinel species and life history characteristics
that may best reveal responses to physical andbiological changes;
 Discuss synthetic approaches, beyond single measurement
types, that are needed to understand how climate
variability and change is integrated by top predator
behavior, distribution, abundance, and demography;
 Prepare a statement outlining the need for enhanced
sampling for top predator response to the predicted
2014–2015 El Niño event; Outline and write a review paper on a framework forassessing climate response in North Pacific top predators
 Realize the goal of an interdisciplinary, North Pacificwide funding proposal to synthesize top predator
datasets relative to potential climate change effects;
 Continue these efforts in collaboration with CLIOTOP
and IMBER at the 3rd PICES/ICES Symposium on the“Effects of climate change on the world’s oceans” in 2015.
With the primary goal of FUTURE, “To understand andforecast responses of North Pacific marine ecosystems toclimate change and human activities at basin and regional
scales, and to broadly communicate this scientificinformation to members, governments, resource managers,
stakeholders and the public”, top predators are particularly
useful given their integration across the physicalenvironment and multiple trophic levels, making their
responses a metric of ecosystem change. Also, there isstrong public interest in many top predators, making
outreach and engagement easier than for other ecosystemcomponents. Furthermore, a wide variety of data has beencollected on top predators, including multiple responses(behavior, distribution, fitness) to climatic events (e.g., El
Niños) that may give us insight to future long-term changes.

The primary goal of this workshop (W1) was to review
existing examples of observed and predicted top predator
responses to climate change and variability in the North
Pacific. More specifically, we had a number of goals thatcame to light via talks and workshop discussions: Identify existing top predator, ecological, and oceanographic datasets that can be used to examine response to
climate variability and change;
 Review statistical techniques that can be used todifferentiate top predator response from climate
variability and change;

Participants of the top predators workshop.

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This invited talk was followed by two more seabird
presentations from Takashi Yamamoto (University of
Hokkaido, Japan) and Rob Suryan (Oregon State
University, USA). Yamamoto’s presentation examinedboth tracking data and shipboard sighting surveys ofshearwaters in the Northwest Pacific. He used generalized
additive models to partition sightings data into likelycolony origination and sex, and also to predict changes insea distribution with increased temperatures up to 4°C.
Suryan used a 10-year time series to assess changes incommon murre chick stable isotope signatures and diets asa function of local- and basin-scale environmental forcing.
Specifically, he found a strong relationship between murrenitrogen isotope ratios and local upwelling intensity,
suggesting possible trophic level shifts associated withupwelling regimes. It is unclear whether this represents achange in the length of the food chain or change in nitrogenvalues at the base of the food web. In contrast, carbon was
most strongly associated with basin-scale indices of watermass transport impacting nutrient sources.

There were 22 participants in the workshop. The workshop
included 4 invited talks, 7 contributed talks, and 2 hours of
discussion. The talks were organized largely by species
groups, starting with fish predictions as a function of climatechange and finishing with baleen whales.
The presentation by M. Gadea Pérez-Andújar (Universityof Hawaii, USA) reviewed tagging results and verticalmovement of deep-water sharks relative to the oxygen
minimum zone (OMZ). By comparing species withdifferent movement patterns (deep water activity within the
OMZ), we may be able to understand how different species
are likely to respond to more prevalent encounters with low
oxygen waters. Rachael Orben (University of California
Santa Cruz, USA) discussed winter movements of blacklegged kittiwake from the Pribilof Islands to the sub-arctic
North Pacific across three winter seasons. She foundhigher use of the Bering Sea during the El Niño conditionsof 2009/10 and that individuals traveled farther, flew more,
and used more area in La Niña conditions in 2010/11.
Stable isotopes also showed greater individual variability incarbon isotopes in 2010/11, suggesting a use of a broader
geographic area and/or prey base in this year.
William Sydeman (Farallon Institute for Advanced
Ecosystem Research, USA) gave an invited presentation on
challenges and opportunities for assessment and attributionof climate impacts on North Pacific seabirds. A metaanalysis revealed that increased temperatures had mixed
effects on North Pacific seabirds, highlighting the need formore detailed examination of climate change mechanisms
and responses. Additional important points were that weneed more data and climate projections on mid-trophic
forage species that greatly influence these top predators,
and that we will likely need both mechanistic numericalmodels combined with statistical models to begin teasing
apart the effects of climate variability from change.

Takashi Yamamoto discussing streaked shearwater habitat use in the
Northwest Pacific.

Chandra Goetsch (University of California Santa Cruz,
USA) presented results on northern elephant seal foraging
behavior changes and diet switching during the 2010
Central Pacific El Niño. Female elephant seals show
extreme fidelity to their migrations, so changes in diet arelikely a function of prey densities or selectivity by foraging
elephant seals. Diet estimates from fatty acid analysis
differed between ENSO states (negative, neutral, andpositive) with positive, or El Niño, conditions being
significantly different from neutral and negative (La Niña)
conditions. Future analyses will examine specific remotelysensed oceanographic conditions which may be driving the
behavioral and diet changes observed.
Our second invited speaker, Jeffrey Polovina (NOAA
Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, USA), spoke
about climate impacts on Hawaiian monk seals andloggerhead sea turtles relative to changes in the North
Pacific Transition Zone (NPTZ). One of the strongest
messages highlighted the complexity in predicting climate

Increased variability in Cassin’s auklet breeding success in recent years.
From W. Sydeman’s presentation.

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change effects on top predators, and why tagging studies
are critical to assess impacts on these species. Specifically,models predicting a northward migration of the NPTZ may
not have a large effect on sea turtles if the Kuroshio
Extension and Bifurcation also migrate northward ensuringthat the “highways” are still aligned with increased
productivity. Furthermore, central place foragers, likemonk seals, that are tied to land may no longer be able toreach critical foraging habitat after northward movement of
the NPTZ, which likely will create population level effects.

and attribute climate effects to top predator ecology anddemography; 3) The importance and need for the synthesis
and analysis of existing data, particularly in extreme years;
and 4) a need to identify life history characteristics andmetrics that are inherent to sentinel species. As part ofthese discussions, we came up with a suite of tasks
mentioned in the objectives above that we hope toaccomplish as part of AP-MBM, FUTURE, and CLIOTOP
upcoming activities.

Our third invited speaker, Kevin Weng (University of
Hawaii, USA) gave a presentation on fish futures and how
species are likely to adapt and respond to climate change.
His talk discussed physiological responses to climatechange and the potential interplay among CO2, O2 andtemperature on fitness. Kevin discussed the use of end-toend (E2E) ecosystem models such as SEAPODYM andAPECOSM that are predicting climate change effects on
distribution and abundance of top predatory fish.
Furthermore, the point was made that we need to seek
integrative funding calls to complete the research necessary
to understand top predator responses to climate variability
and change. Kevin also discussed the role of CLIOTOP
and highlighted potential joint interests between the
FUTURE and CLIOTOP programs on observing andpredicting the effects of climate on top predators.

Box 1. Climate predictions for 2014 suggest that astrong El Niño – potentially similar in magnitude to thestrongest previously recorded ENSO events – isdeveloping in the tropical Pacific that may have large
ecosystem effects throughout the North Pacific. Based on
discussions from our PICES FUTURE workshop, weemphasize the importance of data collection to monitor
the ecosystem response to the impending El Niño.
Specifically, 1) ensure existing sampling and monitoring
programs on physical and biological oceanography, forage
species, and top predators are continued, 2) implement
additional sampling to test key mechanistic hypotheses of
ecosystem change that were generated during prior ENSO
events, and 3) obligate sufficient funding to compile andanalyze data with respect to previous El Niño events(1982–3/1997–8). Given the broad-reaching effects of El
Niño events on ocean ecosystems, data collection andanalyses should be coordinated throughout PICES
member countries. Understanding the response of
ecosystems to extreme climate events is critical tounderstanding how ecosystems may respond in the future
under projected climate change scenarios.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitori
ng/enso_disc_apr2014/ensodisc.html.

Brianna Witteveen (University Alaska Kodiak, USA) talked
about the Gulf Apex Predator-Prey (GAP) integrated
research project which is documenting spatial and temporal
patterns in habitat use and consumption estimates of top
predators in the ecosystem around Kodiak Island. These
integrative surveys measured physical oceanography andlower trophic level species (zooplankton and fish) up to top
predator sightings.
Multi-scale data including aerial
surveys, stable isotopes, and individual tracking data werealso collected and can be used collectively to examine
ecological changes in baleen whales since 1997.
Our final presentation was by Kathy Kuletz (U.S. Fish andWildlife, USA) who provided an overview of available atsea survey data for the subarctic and arctic North Pacific.
A suite of studies are underway examining spatial shifts inseabird species and likely population changes such as fornorthern fulmars. Sightings data on seabirds are being
linked to prey and oceanographic data. Long-term datasets
and synthetic studies like these highlight the importance ofunderstanding both responses to climate variability (e.g.,
extreme climatic events) but also long-term (20+ years)
trends in top predator distribution and abundance.

First, our use of the term “indicators” refers to sentinel
species that reflect (indicate) the impact of climate change
on upper trophic level species and may serve to highlight oreven lead certain biophysical processes that particularly
impact upper trophic level species. Inclusion of sentinel
species in FUTURE, therefore, fulfills a critical objectiveof assessing ecosystem impacts of climate change. The useof sentinel species to be early “indicators” of climatechange is most appropriate in situations where information

Summary and conclusions from the Workshop
There were several key takeaway messages from theworkshop discussion: 1) A need to define the term“indicator” particularly for top predators; 2) A need to
identify the mechanistic processes necessary to understand
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past events, but also for targeting future research to fillknowledge gaps. It is essential to request adequate funds
for data synthesis in future funding of field data collection.

obtained from them is not being collected otherwise (e.g.,
top predators can be indicators of prey species such as theabundance of Pacific sand lance, Ammodytes hexapterus,
which is difficult to sample using traditional fisheries
methods).

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, there was muchdiscussion about understanding climate variability,
particularly extreme years and the top predator response tothese events. There is a suite of potential responses (e.g.,
spatial shifts, temporal shifts, dietary changes, fitness anddemographic change). Furthermore, with a potentiallyextreme El Niño event developing in the second half of2014 (see Box 1), there is an urgent need to understandecosystem responses to this event. We have written astatement for distribution among the PICES community
stating the importance of continued measurements and,
where possible, additional data collection. We foresee theneed to collaborate across PICES committees to identify
physical, biological, top predator, and ecosystem dataneeds to measure the response of the North Pacific toclimatic extremes.

Second, understanding mechanisms (for example, PICES2011 Topic Session S2, convened by Alheit, Hazen,
Katugin, Suryan, Watanuki, Yasuda, 2011; Marine Ecology
Progress Series Theme Section 487: 176–304, 2013) of
how sentinel species are affected by climate change iscritical to modeling ecosystem impacts to upper trophic
levels. This effort will require a combination of statistical,
numerical, and energy flow modeling approaches to
identify mechanisms. The group also acknowledged that
understanding all mechanisms is unrealistic given the suiteof variables integrated by top predators, but identifying a
few dominant mechanisms is realistic and should be a goalin the future. Particular life history traits may cause various
top predators to respond differently to climate change suchas a) central place forager vs. migratory species, b) trophic
position in the food web, c) specialist vs. generalist
foragers, d) air breather vs. gilled organism. Considerationof these traits have important implications when testing
response mechanisms. We proposed that a subset of theworkshop participants develop a review paper thatexamines the framework needed and mechanisms involved
to understand responses of top predators to climate change.

Acknowledgements We thank the speakers for taking thetime to travel to attend the workshop, summarizing andsharing their data, and contributing to a fruitful discussion.
We would especially like to thank those individuals who
contributed additional time to analyze new datasets
specifically for this workshop. We thank the BIO and POC
Committees, Science Board and the PICES Secretariat for
supporting the workshop and for providing travel funds forour invited speakers. We also thank CLIOTOP for cosponsoring an invited speaker for the session.

Third, there is still much to be learned by compiling andanalyzing existing datasets, particularly in response to
extreme climatic events. This is critical for learning from

Dr. Elliott Hazen (elliott.hazen@noaa.gov) is an ecologist at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Environmental Research
Division, in Pacific Grove, California. His research interests include a range of topics from fine-scale foraging ecology of top predators
to modeling the effects of climate change on top predator habitat and biodiversity. In addition, he is currently working on creating
ecosystem indicators for the California Current large marine ecosystem.
Dr. Steven Bograd (steven.bograd@noaa.gov) is a physical oceanographer (with Elliott Hazen) at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science
Center, Environmental Research Division, in Pacific Grove, California. Steven is currently involved in a number of research projects
studying climate variability and its impacts on the marine ecosystems of the North Pacific Ocean, and is Editor-in-Chief of Fisheries
Oceanography. Steven has been active in PICES for many years, and is a member of the Physical Oceanography Committee and WG 27
on North Pacific Climate Variability and Change. He chairs the Advisory Panel on Anthropogenic Influences on Coastal Ecosystems.
Dr. Takashi Yamamoto (taka.y@nipr.ac.jp) is a postdoctoral fellow of Arctic Environment Research Center at National Institute of Polar
Research (working at Hokkaido University) in Japan. His research specialty is the spatial ecology of top predators, especially seabirds.
Recently his research interests include behavioural and morphological adaptations of animals to local marine environment, and also
understanding the factors influencing species distribution and predicting species response to climate-related changes using habitat
modelling techniques.
Dr. Rob Suryan (rob.suryan@oregonstate.edu) is an Associate Professor - Senior Research in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
at Oregon State University. His research focuses on marine ecosystem processes and their effect on foraging, reproduction, andpopulation dynamics of mid to upper trophic-level predators and human-resource interactions.

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OSM Workshop on “Bridging the divide between models and decision-making:
The role of uncertainty in the uptake of forecasts by decision makers”
by Edward J. Gregr

Convenors and invited speakers (left to right): Kai M.A. Chan (Canada), Lee Failing (invited speaker, Compass Resource Management Ltd., Canada),
Georgina A. Gibson (invited speaker, International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks), Edward J. Gregr (Canada), Vladimir Kulik(Russia), Hal Batchelder (PICES Secretariat), Motomitsu Takahashi (Japan), Shin-ichi Ito (Japan), Missing: Naesun Park (Korea), Ian Perry (Canada),
Jameal Samhouri (USA).

The FUTURE science program recognizes the need to more
directly address uncertainty in products such as ocean climate
forecasts, and to improve how the knowledge produced by
PICES is disseminated. In a series of presentations anddiscussions, our workshop (W2), held April 14, 2014,
examined both the nature of uncertainty in model systems,
and how uncertainties can be included in the decision making
process. The workshop was well attended, with broad
representation from PICES member countries. We identified
a number of opportunities for the PICES community to
improve how uncertainty is characterized, and to highlightseveral advantages that would emerge from tailoring model
outputs, including uncertainties, for diverse audiences.

design and contain uncertainties about model boundaries andresolution, among other things. Once model data and scope
are defined, decisions and assumptions about process must
be made, for example, which ecosystem components interact
and the nature of these interactions, some of which are also
uncertain.
For the purposes of communication and decision-making,
Gregr and Chan added two additional classes ofassumptions, Communication and Relevance (Table 1).
Assumptions around communication obscure uncertainties
related to things such as language and disciplinary
epistemology. Perhaps most importantly, the relevance of
ecosystem model results to decision-making is often
assumed to be quite high by model developers. However,this is far from certain, and evidence suggests that it isoften quite low (Failing, this workshop). This class ofassumptions thus relates to uncertainties about indicator
selection and the context relevance. In many cases,
comprehensive treatments of model uncertainties are notnecessarily desirable (or tractable). However, Gregr andChan argue that a more explicit recognition and discussionof model assumptions is necessary for improving ourunderstanding and communication of model results, and theassociated uncertainties.

Understanding uncertainty
The first step in addressing uncertainty is to understand its
source. Gregr and Chan (in review) consider three classes(Data, Scope, and Process) of uncertainty based on theassumptions necessary at various steps in the model design
process. Assumptions about data relate to uncertainties about
things such as sampling bias, representativeness, and theoverall relevance of the data to the study under consideration.
Decisions about model scope (e.g., specification of spatial,
temporal, and compositional extents) are central to model
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Table 1 Assumption classes and the associated types of uncertainty.

Assumption classassume unbiased data, but analyses often contain implicit,
potentially false assumptions about the relevance orsuitability of such data, which may contain geographic orseasonal sampling biases. Gryba also considered
conceptual assumptions implicit in such models, where, forexample, it is often assumed that mammal sightings arecorrelated with high prey concentrations. She showed how
this conceptual assumption is testable using independent
data on prey distributions, thus providing insights into theuncertainty associated with this key habitat modelingassumption.

Uncertainty

Data

Observational

Scope

Design uncertainty

Structure
Process

Parameter estimation
Natural variation
Inherent randomness

Communication

Ambiguity

The challenge of coupling models was discussed by ShinIchi Ito (Japan), who presented the results of a fisheries
production model for Pacific saury forced using sea surface
temperature predictions from 12 different global climate
models developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC). While a number of correlations
were found, uncertainty in fish growth projections were
dominated by uncertainties in the physical forcing. Thisemphasizes the need for appropriate scaling methods whenmoving from global to regional study areas. Ito suggested
that to effectively couple models across scales, more
attention needs to be paid to key processes at the interfaces.
For example, zooplankton dynamics play a key role insaury abundance. Thus, it is critical to appropriately
capture the relationships between physics and zooplankton,
and between zooplankton and higher trophic levels (HTLs).
Given that HTLs typically respond to multiple drivers
operating at different scales (e.g., Palacios et al. 2013), a
better understanding is needed about how HTLs respond to
short-term forecasts.

Under-specification
Vagueness
Relevance

Context dependence
Relativism

Representing uncertainty
Several presentations illustrated methods for examining
model uncertainties. Invited speaker, Georgina Gibson(USA), discussed the role of assumptions in thedevelopment of lower trophic level (LTL) ecosystemmodels. Describing how the complexity of model structure
and parameterization can increase quickly, she emphasized
the associated need for assumptions to manage this. She
demonstrated how to use sensitivity analysis to identify
critical parameters, but noted that the large computational
demands limit the extent to which it can be applied. Gibson
and Spitz (2011) used a one-dimensional lower trophic
level model to examine a suite of 135 biological and 8
environmental factors, and ranked these factors according
to their influence on model outputs. Although the approach
identified parameters deserving closer scrutiny, similar
analysis has not been applied to 2- or 3-dimensionalmodels because of the computational limitations, leaving
important parameters untested.

The need to understand such processes and theirinteractions was nicely illustrated by Bill Peterson (USA),
who showed how the correlation between the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Chinook salmon ocean
survival, which had shown a robust negative correlation for
15 years, suddenly failed dramatically in 2011. The causal
relationship appears mediated by copepods, which provide
an index of the lipid richness at the base of the food chain.
This ‘lipid rich copepod index’ is, in turn, correlated with
Chinook survival. However, the decoupling of therelationship highlights new uncertainties about the scale
and process of the presumed mechanism. Once again, thisemphasizes the need to understand the process, thougheven so, surprises should be expected. For HTL models inparticular, the need to transition from correlative tomechanistic model frameworks is increasingly relevant(Palacios et al. 2013).

Exploring the parameter uncertainties in such simulation
models is typically handled using established Monte Carlo
methods. However, knowing the range over which tosample parameters is critical to such efforts. Unfortunately,such ranges (which are necessary to parameterizetheoretical, mechanistic models) are not always known, andthus represent important design assumptions. Similarly,
initial or starting conditions for models may be unknown,
which can have a significant effect on the trajectory ofmodel predictions (Gibson and Spitz 2011).

Decision making and communication

Rowenna Gryba (Canada) examined assumptions about therelevance and utility of data, and how this influences theevaluation of habitat suitability in models of North Pacific
Right whales. Standard cross-validation approaches toevaluating models of habitat suitability are sensitive topotential biases in the data. Analytical methods typically

Lee Failing (Canada), our second invited speaker, provided
an important perspective on the role of research anduncertainty in decision making. Failing noted that while
many frameworks exist to support integrated management,
the process of actually making decisions and managing the25

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risks arising from uncertainty are rarely emphasized.
Rather, the decision-making components are often
presented as post-hoc interactions with the principal
science represented in prominent detail (e.g., Figure 1).
Treating decision-making as an afterthought introduces
many implicit and likely false assumptions about the roleof science in the decision-making process. Suchperspectives are grounded in the information deficit modelof science communication, an approach that is increasingly
understood to be false (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inf
ormation_deficit_model). Only a small portion of science
as currently practiced is typically salient to decision makers.
To improve the relevance of science to policy and decision
making, Failing emphasized the transformative power thatcomes from “making the decision” the goal of the scientificeffort and analysis. This leads to immediate identificationof what is important, and informs where science could best
contribute to the process. The salience of such contributions
would be greatest if they helped inform the trade-offs faced
by decision-makers and their stakeholders.

also means being explicit about unquantified assumptions
to help understand the associated risk. And perhaps mostimportantly, it means recognizing that there is no single
audience or stakeholder, but rather a diversity of interests
for whom different metrics and presentation methods may
be required. Targeting – identifying what matters, and how
it is best measured, for each decision scenario – will be key
to effectively communicating FUTURE products beyond
the PICES scientific community.
Challenges and opportunities
In addition to the presentations, we devoted considerable
time to discussion, including a joint session with theparticipants of workshop W3 on “Climate change andecosystem-based management of living marine resources:
appraising and advancing key modeling tools”. The joint
session acknowledged that the fundamental challenge forthe modeling community is to identify what resonates withdecision makers. Given the diversity of management andpolicy decisions that are regularly made, this emphasizes
the need to develop communication strategies that canadapt effectively to diverse audiences. Decision makers
would like to reduce risk and reduce surprises. This would
presumably simplify the trade-offs inherent in policy andmanagement decisions.
The role of reliable ecosystem forecasts in reducing risk
and producing fewer surprises is recognized, although therisk of such forecasts being wrong and surprising decision
makers will need to be carefully managed. Integrating datafrom regional Ocean Observing Systems, focusing on
short-term forecasts, and predicting the responses of HTLs
are essential components of such ecosystem forecast
systems. The increasing risks faced by decision makers due
to climate uncertainty provide an opportunity to advocate
for ocean climate forecast services at regional scales,emphasizing that their utility for managing risk is as highas traditional short-term weather forecasts.
Uncertainties related to closure terms (i.e., the parameters
required to represent aspects not included in the model),model structure, and the downscaling of global models willcontinue to present challenges to the development of such
short-term forecasts. Ensemble modeling is increasingly
providing an opportunity to address the cumulative
uncertainty in highly complex models, allowing theassessment of robustness (Knutti and Sedláček 2013). To
demonstrate their relevance, a key performance challenge
for such short-term forecasts is to achieve not only
statistical accuracy, but to reasonably predict the phase (i.e.,
timing) of climatic events. This will be best approachedthrough regional models, which have already met withsome success, such as the prediction of hypoxia events(Siedlecki et al. 2014). Accurate predictions of phasechanges is critical (although emphatically not sufficient)for forecasting the HTL indicators important for many
stakeholder groups.

Fig. 1 Example risk assessment framework emphasizing (red oval,
added) the implied post-hoc role for the decision making process.

This leads to the question of science communication, andKai Chan (Canada) argued that this is as much a questionof targeting as it is of understanding the science and theinherent uncertainties. Through various examples, Chanemphasized the need to focus on the complete decision
scenario to identify what really matters and, equallyimportant, what is at risk. From the perspective of the
FUTURE program, this means identifying relevant metrics
and understanding the distribution of inputs and outputs. It
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PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2

OSM Workshop on “Climate change and ecosystem-based management of living
marine resources: Appraising and advancing key modeling tools”
by Tim Essington, Anne B. Hollowed and Myron A. Peck
The workshop (W3), co-sponsored by the ICES/PICES
Strategic Initiative (Section) on the Impacts of Climate
Change on Marine Ecosystems (SICCME/S-CCME), wasconvened by the co-authors of this summary on April 14,
2014, as part of the PICES FUTURE Open Science Meeting.
Ten scientists representing 6 nations participated in themeeting.

biogeochemistry and the production of phytoplankton andzooplankton. He compared the pathways utilized torepresent food web connections within LTL models
highlighting the fact that these are fairly rigid and different
pathways. Many of these nutrient-phytoplanktonzooplankton-detritus (NPZD) models were never designed
to represent zooplankton dynamics, although many arebeing utilized to estimate biomass and productivity of thatcomponent. An important advancement of these LTL
models includes more mechanistic (physiological-based)
representation of life history and trait-based approaches
allowing evolution and adaptation to environmental
conditions to take place (and emergent properties ofcommunities), and more widespread inclusion andincreased complexity in representing benthic processes.
Modular models with flexible components are needed.
Furthermore, the talk stressed the importance of broadscale patterns (consistent features of groups which are
independent of habitat characteristics) that allow one tobetter validate models.

Overview
Climate variability and climate change interact with otherpressures to affect the productivity and dynamics of marine
ecosystems. Managers charged with the stewardship ofsustainable living marine resources are challenged to deal
with the consequences of this variability, and better tools
are needed to inform them. The workshop was convened to
discuss state-of-the-art tools for: (1) calculating biologicalreference points under changing climate conditions thatrecognize that equilibrium states no longer apply;(2) assessing the relative ecological and economic costs
and tradeoffs of different ecosystem-based management
scenarios, and (3) estimating the vulnerability and stabilityof ecosystems (and their key components) required to makeinformed, ecosystem-based fisheries management decisions.
The workshop was intended to provide a critical review ofmodeling tools available for fisheries management needs
and to understand what advancements are required toaddress climate-driven changes in ecosystem dynamics.

In the second invited talk, Beth Fulton (CSIRO, Australia)
provided an overview of her experience constructing
complex (parameter-rich) end-to-end models and ongoing
improvements in model structure and parameterization that
help represent real-world complexity. Her talk stressed how
ecosystems are moving targets with respect to the featuresof key components. One example was the inability to
examine temporal development in fish groups without
explicitly accounting for fishery-induced changes in size
during the early portion of the time series and both fisheryeffects and climate-induced changes. She also highlighted
the importance of exploring scenarios in end-to-end models
that include consideration of the full extent of (potentiallysurprising) human responses within multiple interacting
sectors. When used in this manner, it is possible to assess
the importance of various attributes of ecosystems (such as
the presence or absence of adaptation of key species tochange). Her work with these complex models also
highlighted the importance of collecting new information
on key groups such as mesopelagic fish and forage species,
which are a rarely studied but possibly are a criticallyimportant component in many marine food webs.
Understanding and modeling the adaptive capacity of bothbiological (food web components) and social systems areimportant challenges that need to be overcome.

Objectives
The three main objectives were to discuss state-of-the-art
tools for:1. Calculating biological reference points under changing
climate conditions that recognize that equilibrium states
no longer apply,
2. Assessing the relative ecological and economic costs
and tradeoffs of different ecosystem-based management
scenarios, and3. Estimating the vulnerability and stability of ecosystems(and their key components) required to inform ecosystembased fisheries management.
Summary
Two invited speakers provided a strong conceptual
backdrop on the current status and important avenues for
future progress in state-of-the-art ecosystem modeling. In
the first talk, Icarus Allen (PML, UK) presented an
overview of the current state of lower trophic level (LTL)models with emphasis on examining links between physics,

Alan Haynie (NOAA NMFS, USA) provided a (recorded)
talk introducing FishSET, a spatial economics toolbox tobetter incorporate fisher behavior into fisheries
management and ecosystem modeling. The model attempts
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to understand how fishers respond to various aspects suchas fish or fuel prices, changes in habitat and theenvironment, bycatch regulations, catch shares, and marine
reserves or other closures. This location-choice model uses
various types of available data to evaluate what factors
explain where vessels fish (and related questions). The
fishing area is chosen as a function of key economic
indicators such as expected catch/revenue in the area, travel
costs (fuel, time, wages, the opportunity cost of not using
the boat elsewhere) and vessel characteristics (e.g.,horsepower), as well as biological and environmental
characteristics of areas. FishSET is a stand-alone Matlab
application and the presentation outlined the 7 primaryfeatures of the model. An upcoming pilot project in the
Northeast/Mid-Atlantic will examine the interactions
between fishers and potential wind energy projects.

envelop models, dynamic energy budget models) undercommon scenarios, were being assessed using a spatially
explicit bio-economic model (FishRent).
A wide ranging discussion followed these talks which was
facilitated by a 1-hour combined session with workshop W2
focusing on communicating science and effective stakeholder
engagement. Key findings from the workshop were: Models should be flexible to accommodate shifting
selectivity, growth, natural mortality, and availability.
Zooplankton and mesopelagic species, as well as theadaptive capacity of food web components need to bebetter represented.
 Fisher choice models provide insight into functional
responses which will be critical to use within end-to-end
models of marine systems, which include management
evaluation frameworks. Stock assessment and fisheriesscientists should partner to conduct retrospective studies
of fisher responses to changing conditions.
 Setting biological reference points without knowing the
trajectory to a new equilibrium state will be challenging.
Management evaluation frameworks are needed to
identify robust harvest strategies.
 Projections of the effects of climate change on futurefish and fisheries must consider also the responses offishers and managers. Developing future scenarios must
be done in conjunction with stakeholders. A set ofcandidate alternative futures is needed to set the stage
for discussion of scenarios.

In the final talk, Myron Peck (University of Hamburg,
Germany) briefly introduced the EU VECTORS program
which is attempting to examine the ecological andeconomic costs and tradeoffs of changes in the distribution
and productivity of outbreak forming species (such as
jellyfish) and alien invasive species. Three European
regional seas are in focus (North Sea, Mediterranean Sea,
and Baltic Sea). This presentation summarized efforts tobuild consistent future scenarios that allow one to not only
incorporate physical and biological changes projectedunder different greenhouse gas emission scenarios but also
the key economic (fish price, fuel price, gear investment,etc.) and policy decisions regarding spatial utilization ofocean habitats (from fisheries, renewable energy,
conservation, etc.). An important take-home message wasthat future policy mechanisms may be as important as
potential climate-driven changes in the distribution of fishstocks. The talk also summarized how distributionalchanges, as detected using different approaches (bioclimate

Acknowledgements
The workshop convenors thank the invited speakers andworkshop participants for active discussions. Issues werehighlighted that can be taken up by ICES/PICES S(I)CCME
via inter-sessional work.

Dr. Tim Essington (essing@uw.edu) is a Professor of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington (Seattle, Washington,USA). His research examines food web interactions within a wide range of marine, estuarine and freshwater habitats. A primaryconsideration is the structuring role played by fisheries and other anthropogenic effects. His research attempts to understand thepotential conflicts between fisheries targeting species that occupy distinct positions in food webs.
Dr. Anne B. Hollowed (anne.hollowed@noaa.gov) is a Senior Scientist with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service’s Alaska Fisheries 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 authorof Chapter 28, Polar Regions, of the Working Group II contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change.
Dr. Myron A. Peck (myron.peck@uni-hamburg.de) is an Associate Professor of Biological Oceanography at the University of Hamburg,
Institute of Hydrobiology and Fisheries Science (Hamburg, Germany). He has a broad range of research interests related to physicaland biological processes governing marine and estuarine species and food webs, including coupling species life history and physiology
and translating that knowledge to models to advance predictive capacity.

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OSM Workshop on an “Ecosystem projection model inter-comparison andassessment of climate change impacts on global fish and fisheries”
by Anne B. Hollowed, Kirstin Holsman and Kerim Aydin
Introduction

science community and the global climate modelingcommunity interface their models and exchange data.

Climate change is a global issue affecting marine
ecosystems and species that span multiple internationalboundaries, and is one of the most universal challenges
facing fisheries scientists and managers around the world.
To address these challenges scientists have developedmodeling approaches and management tools to project
future impacts.
This task mandates international
collaboration to develop approaches that can be
implemented across multiple, large marine ecosystems
worldwide. Keeping pace with a rapidly changing climate
also requires fisheries management tools that canaccurately and efficiently inform best solutions in an
uncertain future and evaluate tradeoffs associated withalternative
carbonmanagement
strategies,
yet
implementation of such management lags behind climatedriven changes to species and ecosystems. As part of the
on-going activities of the PICES/ICES Section on Climate
Change Effects on Marine Ecosystems (S-CCME, also
known as the Strategic Initiative on Climate Change
Effects on Marine Ecosystems), Anne B. Hollowed (AFSC
NOAA), Kerim Aydin (AFSC NOAA), and Kirstin
Holsman (JISAO/AFSC) co-convened a workshop on April
12–13, 2014, at the FUTURE Open Science Meeting(OSM). The workshop was funded by the National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine
Fisheries Service (NMFS) as a project within its
International Science Program. Twenty nine scientists,
representing seven nations, participated in the meeting.

The workshop brought together earth system modelers,
oceanographers, fisheries stock assessment scientists, andecosystem modelers to discuss the current and near-term
future status of ESMs and their potential contributions toprojecting climate change impacts on living marine
resources, providing much-needed information forsustainable fisheries management in the future. Increases incomputing power and storage have facilitated refinementsin the spatial and temporal scale of climate models[6] andESMs have been developed that incorporate terrestrial andoceanic biosphere processes. Conceivably, ESM outputs
could be used to project climate change impacts on the
distribution and abundance of phytoplankton andzooplankton in marine systems[7], eliminating the need for
dynamic downscaling of global climate projections toregional circulation models. However, because ESMs may
not appropriately capture important oceanographic features(e.g., regional upwelling zones, coastal eddies, or benthic
processes) the appeal of such a unified, global approach
must be weighed carefully against the advantages ofregionally tailored marine ecosystem modeling frameworks.
Specific objectives for the workshop included:
Obj. 1 Identify the optimal means of combining global
ESMs, high resolution regional modelingframeworks (RMFs), and ecosystem models ofvarying complexity to provide robust assessmentsof climate change impacts on living marine
resources and their habitat.

The goal of this workshop was to discuss options forinterfacing fisheries and ecosystem models with next
generation Earth System Models (ESMs). Several marine
ecosystem modeling approaches have been advanced toproject the impacts of climate-driven changes on marine
ecosystems and to identify sustainable harvest practices forecosystems impacted by climate change[1][2]. Each of theseapproaches has inherent strengths and weaknesses,
depending on which fisheries management questions arebeing considered[3]. Increasingly, fishery and ecosystemmodelers recognize that a global network of models isneeded for a world-wide synthesis of climate change
effects on marine ecosystems and the global food supply. A
necessary first step towards this goal is an assessment of
the relationship between model complexity, efficiency,
predictive skill, and the computational costs of increased
ecological realism in models, which can be used to identify
the suite of candidate models for the global network [4][5].
This assessment requires guidance on how the fisheries

Obj. 2 Coordinate international efforts to assess biologicaland societal impacts of climate-driven changes tofuture marine resources.
The 1½ day workshop (W4) consisted of a mix of oralpresentations and group discussions. On day 1, Anne
Hollowed gave a brief opening address and described the
expectations for the workshop.
She explained thatparticipants would focus on three tasks: (1) review thecurrent state of climate and ecosystem models for eachregion; (2) identify inter- and intra-region comparisons andobjective questions, specifically, identify focal regions/marine systems, available data, and a subset of existingmodels for initial analyses; and (3) identify a list ofcollaborators, individual tasks relative to comparative
analyses phase A or B (see Fig. 1), specific timelines andbenchmarks, and budgetary/funding requirements forcompleting model inter-comparisons.
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Fig. 1 Two-phase framework for model inter-comparisons (order of phases depends on available models and data), using the eastern Bering Sea (AK,USA) as an example. a) Comparative results from coupled regional climate models and nutrient phytoplankton zooplankton models (RCMs/NPZ)
and Earth System Models (ESM); b) intra-regional comparison of model results to identify best models for application in c) inter-regional
comparisons. Proposed regional models are for illustrative purposes only and will depend on existing models for each region. E2E: end-to-end
models; EWE: Ecopath with Ecosim; MSM: multi-species stock assessment; SS: single-species stock assessment.

Task 1 was accomplished through 16 oral presentations
during the first day. The first four speakers discussed
existing work on global climate models and earth systemmodels. The spatial distribution of global climate models
and earth system models varies. Charles Stock reviewed
the types of models currently developed or underdevelopment at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
Laboratory in the U.S. Enrique Curchitser discussed
ongoing collaborations between Rutgers University and the
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) andpresented several examples where models developed by theclimate modeling community have been used to projectchanges in habitat quality and quantity (e.g., polar bear
habitat in the Arctic and spatial extent of future coral reef
bleaching). Scientists at Rutgers and NCAR are partnering
to develop high resolution coupled models (the Community
Earth System Model, CESM) of the California Current
ecosystem. Icarus Allen described the United Kingdom
Earth System Modeling Project (UKESM). Members of
this project are developing suites of models at different
spatial and temporal resolutions that will contribute to thesixth Climate Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6)
effort. Scientists are exploring outcomes from nutrient,
phytoplankton and zooplankton models with different
levels of complexity. The inter-comparison will attempt tohave common computing platforms, common physics,
common forcing, and common initial conditions. New
models with 1/10 degree spatial resolution of the physicalmodels are being tested in the UK. Michio Kawamiya
discussed the status and future of Japanese climate models.
Japanese scientists are testing new models in preparation
for CMIP6 that will include improved spatial resolution(vertical and horizontal) and enhanced complexity of thenutrient, phytoplankton and zooplankton components of themodels. Nesting models at different spatial scales provide
improved ability to resolve fine-scale physical features inwaters off the coast of Japan.
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The next suite of modelers presented results of efforts toforce regional marine ecosystem models with boundary
conditions from climate models. Beth Fulton described theon-going research in Australia to project the implications ofdecadal variability and climate change on marine
ecosystems. Australian modelers are also striving to
improve the biological realism and spatial resolution ofmodels. She introduced an existing effort to develop a Fish
Model Intercomparison (FISH-MIP) and an Intersectoral
Impact Model Intercomparison (ISI-MIP).
Workshopparticipants recognized that the goals of FISH-MIP and
ISI-MIP are similar to S-CCME and therefore, participants
will pursue possible future collaborations with these groups.
Michael Foreman provided an overview of the current
status and future plans for ocean ecosystem modeling in
Canada. He noted that efforts are underway to improve thespatial resolution and biological realism of the ocean
models. Recent retrospective comparisons showed thatcurrent regional circulation models were not reproducing
offshore upwelling and downwelling winds and seasonaltransitions correctly so additional work is needed. In
addition, Canadian scientists are developing a highresolution regional model for the high Arctic. Al Hermann
discussed a regional ocean model for the southeastern
Bering Sea that was first developed as part of the GLOBEC
program and has been improved as part of the BESTBSIERP Bering Sea Project. This model reproduces
known physical features with reasonable accuracy andpreliminary projections through 2040 are now available foruse in fisheries models.
Afternoon presenters continued to discuss the status ofregional ocean model experiments. Shin-ichi Ito noted thatseveral models have been developed to project climate
impacts on Japanese fish distribution and abundance. The
complexity of the nutrient-phytoplankton-zooplankton
components of these models differed substantially.
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Projections through 2100 are available for some species(e.g., Pacific saury and sardine).
William Cheung
presented a global assessment of the catch potential offisheries in the future based on available climate model
outputs. Kirstin Holsman gave a talk on behalf of Kerim
Aydin who was unable to attend the meeting. Aydin’smodel extends the coupled bio-physical model describedby Hermann to include fish and fishers. The model tracks
local environmental conditions, and fish movement
emerges as a property of energetic demands, preyavailability and predation. Retrospective runs of the model
are able to reproduce the general spatial pattern of key
ecosystem components. Projections should be available
within the next 6 months. Melissa Haltuch and Kirstin
Holsman provided an overview of available methods for
projecting future abundance of key species using climateenhanced single species or multispecies models. Using
approaches similar to Cheung’s dynamic bioclimatic
window approach, Elliott Hazen estimated the impact of
future climate change on the availability of suitable habitatfor several top predators. Pheobe Woodworth-Jencoats
compared projections based on an ecosystem model(Ecopath with Ecosim) and a size spectrum modelingapproach. She found similarities in model outputs at lower
trophic levels but important differences between the twomodeling approaches for larger predators. This finding
provided insight into the range of possible projected future
outcomes. The last speaker of the day was Nicholas Bond
who discussed a relatively new effort to develop short-term
now-casts of climate. These now-casts can be utilized toestimate uncertainty in short-term model projections.

tropic level responses to climate will be derived fromdifferent scenarios regarding regional ocean conditions. To
the extent practicable, investigators will strive to utilize acommon suite of representative concentration pathways(RCPs) and a common suite of GCMs (Global Climate
Models) or ESMs. However, the methods used to downscalethese global boundary conditions to derive regional ocean
conditions will differ between modeling approaches. Thus,
disparate projected impacts of climate change on higher
trophic levels will partially reflect different mechanisms
incorporated into the models utilized by the modeling teams.
We anticipate that the models will span a wide range of
mechanistic complexity ranging from minimally realistic
approaches to fully coupled end-to-end ecosystem models(Fig. 1). Thus, our proposed experiment will not represent atrue model inter-comparison, wherein the conditions are held
constant to the extent practicable and the structural aspects ofthe model are evaluated. The comparison will be anevaluation of the projected higher trophic level responses toregional ecosystems change caused by a common suite ofclimate forcing scenarios.
The participants discussed a variety of issues related toevaluating model performance. They considered theapproach often used in the stock assessment community,
where analysts develop a simulated system with known
properties and then evaluate their model’s ability tocorrectly identify the properties of the system. In thecontext of the proposed experiment, analysts would have todevelop a simulated ocean and lower trophic level systemwith known properties as a test-bed for evaluating model
performance. While this is a useful idea, the feasibility ofanalysts developing a simulated ocean was deemed too
difficult at this time. The group recommended that themodeling framework should include retrospective runs andshort-term predictions as potential diagnostics on model
performance and agreed that the goal of this experiment
was not to judge the models but to compare the projectedscenarios of higher trophic level response across a range ofmodels.

Discussion
In most regions increases in computing power and storage
have facilitated refinements in the spatial and temporalscale of climate models[6], and ESMs have been developedthat incorporate terrestrial and oceanic biosphere processes.
Conceivably, ESM outputs could be used to projectclimate change impacts on the distribution and abundanceof phytoplankton and zooplankton in marine systems[7],eliminating the need for dynamic downscaling of global
climate projections to regional circulation models.
However, because ESMs do not yet appropriately capture
important small-scale oceanographic features (e.g., regional
upwelling zones, coastal eddies, or benthic processes), in
the near-term the use of ESMs in a unified, global approachshould (minimally) be coupled with regionally-tailoredmarine ecosystem modeling frameworks.

The group recognized that defining the framework to
conduct this experiment is a very high priority as it sets thestage for each of the modeling teams.
Workshopparticipants will work off-line to develop this framework.
Details of the modeling framework can be discussed during
the S-CCME meetings at ICES’ Annual Science
Conference and at PICES-2014. The group will propose aworkshop to be held in 2015 to re-convene the group to
finalize the framework.

Definitions

Results of a subsequent workshop (see the workshop on“Climate change and ecosystem-based management ofliving marine resources”) provided substantial evidence
that assumptions regarding the response of fishers tochanges in the distribution and abundance of target species
are important and must be incorporated into the frameworkof the experiment. Participants in that workshop recommended

The workshop participants held a lengthy discussion
regarding terminology for this experiment. Our experiment
differs substantially from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Phase 5 used to support the most recent
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Assessment Report 5. In our experiment, estimates of higher
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North Pacific Marine Science Organizationthat a range of possible fisher responses should beconsidered and thus, the framework for the proposed upper
trophic level projection experiment should also describe
how to treat this issue.

conducted using projections from multiple GCMs on asingle model[8] and one GCM using multiple biologicalmodels[9], showing the potential benefits of criticallyexamining the outputs of biological models withstructural differences.

Discussion questions

The group recommended that the proposed PICES and
ICES initiative to compare projections of future fish andfisheries using different models could contribute to the
FISH-MIP effort.

1. Are ESMs ready to be implemented for use in forcing
regional ecosystem models?
The group agreed that the current practice of using ocean
and atmospheric conditions derived from GCMs can beextended to utilize outputs from ESMs. Between now and
2021, the spatial resolution of global climate models(GCMs) and ESMs are likely to be reduced to 0.25–0.1
degree. Initial runs of ESMs at 0.1 degree resolution reveal
the models are capable of resolving finer-scale ocean
current features, including eddies and upwelling.
Atmospheric and physical features derived from thesemodels can continue to be used as boundary conditions forregional ocean circulation models. There is wide diversityof opinion whether, or how, nutrient, phytoplankton andzooplankton outputs from ESMs should be used asboundary conditions for regional models. There arepresently no biological feedbacks between the regionalmodels and ESMs.

2. Do existing higher trophic level models use a common
set of the most recent IPCC projections?
Yes and No. While regional teams are using forcing frommodels that have implemented the IPCC emissions
scenarios, they do not all use the same specific (orensemble) GCM or ESM for downscaling RCMs.
Regional ocean circulation modelers often work withmodeling teams in closest proximity to their laboratories.
There are several advantages to this including ease ofaccess to experts for discussions and a general sense of
comfort that the ESM modeling teams are familiar with thelocal physical and environmental features of the region. In
a few cases, regional modeling teams have evaluated GCM
or ESM modeling performance relative to reproducing
important features of a regional ocean. Model selection isbased on performance. For example the Bering Sea
modeling team used the MIROC, CGCM3 and the ECHOG
models. Likewise, the Japanese regional modeling teams
plan to work with modeling teams from the GeophysicalFluid Dynamics Laboratory and the Hadley Center as wellas their local modeling nodes.

Some outputs from climate models are available to thescientific community. However, the temporal resolution of theoutput from some models is coarse and information fromvertical layers is not always available. The regional modelingcommunity should develop a request of key outputs withconsistent spatial and temporal resolutions needed from global
models to adequately force regional models.

The regional modeling teams had a mixed track record withrespect to access and utilization of the most current version
of GCM and ESM models. In several regions the regional
ocean circulation models were being forced with models
developed for AR4 rather than the more recent CMIP5
models. This time-lag needs to be addressed to ensure that
regional ocean model projections are based on the best
available science.

The group noted that several organizations around theglobe have initiated model inter-comparison projects
including:a) The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5that formed the basis for the most recent IPCC report;b) The Arctic Model Intercomparison Project;c) The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project;d) The Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project;e) The Carbon–Land model Intercomparison Project;f) The Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison
Project (ISI–MIP) which has a sub-component dealing
with marine ecosystems and fisheries (FISH-MIP);g) In 2009, PICES initiated a Marine Ecosystem Model
Intercomparison Project (MEMIP) to examine regional
zooplankton productivity. Extensions of this effort
could contribute to the proposed project focused onfish and fisheries;h) The international MARine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (MAREMIP), which is an ecosystemmodel inter-comparison focusing on hindcasting phytoplankton concentrations as measured by ocean color;i) At the same time as these formal inter-comparison
projects, biological ensemble modeling has been
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3. How should IPCC scenarios be selected (e.g., a specificemission scenario, multiple, etc.)?
Multiple model scenarios are needed to reflect the fullrange of possible future conditions. As noted above, aframework for implementing multi-model higher trophic
level projections will be needed. Time did not permit a full
discussion of this framework.
4. Is (or will) the quality and spatial resolution ofphytoplankton and zooplankton output from ESMs be of
sufficient quality to use as boundary conditions for regionalmodels or as indices for stock projection models?
Unclear. The methodology for coupling biological responses
32North Pacific Marine Science Organization

PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2derived from ESMs and regional models has not been fully
developed. A few starting steps have been taken, and thesemake clear that dealing with differences in scale and theresolution of processes in the different models raises scientificissues that need careful handling to avoid the introduction of
artifacts when shifting from one scale to another.

the plankton communities and fish communities (via larval,
juvenile fish age classes and planktivorous species). Many
subtle features of ecosystem evolution are currently missed
and a review of what works where and why would be avaluable exercise, though it may be contingent on the original
motivation for the development of the initial models.

5. What is the state of coupled RCMs/NPZ models?

8. What are the strengths and weakness of simplifying
assumptions for higher trophic level projection?

See Workshop 4 presentations. Multiple regions have begun
or are already using coupled RCMs/NPZ models.

While individual modeling teams have a strong
appreciation of the shortcomings of their own model
representations, they are not well known outside theseexpert user groups. This is, in part, because it would be asignificant undertaking to document these features. The
proposed intermodel comparison, suitably documented,
would be a useful step forward in disseminating thisinformation in a tangible and tractable way.

6. How sensitive are NPZ models to structural assumptions(i.e., boxes)? Should we try to standardize this across regions?
Models are sensitive to their formulations, but it would not
be advisable to insist upon a common modeling platform to
be used universally, as system-specific idiosyncrasies are
required for making robust projections of the dynamics ofdifferent ecosystems. Trying to develop and implement auniversal model would likely require resources and data
sets in excess of what is currently available.

General timelines April 2014: Workshop 1 at the FUTURE Open Science
Meeting, Hawaii; May–December 2014: Design a framework for comparing
within region multi-model projections; March 2015: Workshop 2 to be held in 2015 (Proposals
to be submitted to ICES, PICES and NOAA);
 2015–2016: Complete Phase 1 comparison of multimodel projections for selected regions; Summer 2016: Submit (Phase 1) results to target journal;
 March 2016: Workshop 3 – review frameworks forcomparing between region multi-model projections forselected species groups;
 2016–2017: Complete Phase 2 comparison of region
multi-model projections for selected species; 2019: submit Phase 2 results to target journal;
 December 2020: Published results for use in next IPCC
assessment.

7. What are the most confident outputs from NPZ andecosystem models (e.g., biomass, abundance, shifts indistribution, upper trophic consumers or lower trophic
level biota [e.g., phyto- or zooplankton])?
While there is agreement that the general patterns produced
by NPZ models are capturing system dynamics, the absolutevalues remain uncertain. Zooplankton dynamics are perhaps
the weakest terms at present, with phytoplankton much morereliable. This is, in part, because of how the zooplankton are
currently represented, and also because there are significant
gaps in available data, which become increasingly spatiallyand seasonally heterogeneous with higher trophic levels,
particularly in key processes such as the partitioning ofmortality across different sources of natural mortality. This isimportant because zooplankton are a key trophic link between

See Dr. Anne Hollowed’s bio in the previous article.
Dr. Kirstin Holsman (kirstin.holsman@noaa.gov) is a research scientist with the University of Washington Joint Institute for the Study of the
Atmosphere and Ocean. In collaboration with colleagues at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (NOAA Fisheries), her current work is focusedon developing quantitative methods for ecosystem-based approaches to management and methods to assess and manage for climate-change
impacts on fish and fisheries. In particular, her research includes climate specific multi-species stock-assessment models for the Bering Sea (AK,USA), Integrated Ecosystem Assessments, bioenergetics and food-web models, and field studies of multi-trophic effects of fishery andaquaculture interactions with marine and estuarine ecosystems.
Dr. Kerim Aydin (Kerim.Aydin@noaa.gov) is the program leader of the Resource Ecology and Ecosystem Modeling Program at the Alaska
Fisheries Science Center. His current research is focused on modeling predator/prey interactions, both from an individual behavioral standpointand from a population (food web model).

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References

5. Planque, B. et al. 2011. Uncertainties in projecting spatial
distributions of marine populations. ICES J. Mar. Sci. 68(6):1045–1050.
6. Delworth, T.L. et al. 2012. Simulated climate and climatechange in the GFDL CM2.5 high-resolution coupled climate
model. J. Climate 25(8): doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00316.1
7. Rykaczewski, R. and J. P. Dunne. 2010. Enhanced nutrient
supply to the California Current ecosystem with global
warming and increased stratification in an earth system model.
Geophys. Res. Lett. 37: L21606.
8. Niiranen, S. et al. 2013. Combined effects of global climatechange and regional ecosystem drivers on an exploited marine
food web. Global Change Biol. 19(11): 3327–3342,
9. Gaardmark, A. et al. 2013. Biological ensemble modelling toevaluate potential futures of living marine resources. Ecol.
Appl. 23: 742–754.

1. Plagányi, É.E. et al. 2011. Modelling climate-change effects
on Australian and Pacific aquatic ecosystems: a review ofanalytical tools and management implications. Mar. Fresh.
Res. 62(9): 1132–1147.
2. Stock, C.A. et al. 2011. On the use of IPCC-class models toassess the impact of climate on living marine resources. Prog.
Oceanogr. 88: 1–27.
3. Hollowed. A. B. et al. 2013. Trade-offs associated withdifferent modeling approaches for assessment of fish andshellfish responses to climate change. Climatic Change
119(1): 111–129.
4. Link, J.S. et al. 2012. Dealing with uncertainty in ecosystemmodels: The paradox of use for living marine resource
management. Prog. Oceanogr. 102: 102–114.
(Continued from page 26)

Other opportunities are emerging due to the consequencesof a changing ocean. As ecosystem boundaries shift,baselines on which stock assessment data are based will
begin to expose the assumption of spatial stationarity. This
provides an opportunity for fisheries scientists toreconsider how the science underpinning management
decisions is conducted, and perhaps refocus it more directlyon the decision and the risks to stocks in a moreunpredictable ocean. This is particularly salient in light ofrecent research suggesting ocean conditions play a muchstronger role in recruitment than previously believed(Szuwalski et al. 2014), re-enforcing the need for reliable
ocean forecast systems.

Knutti, R. and J. Sedláčcek. 2013. Robustness and uncertainties in
the new CMIP5 climate model projections. Nature Climate
Change 3, 369-–373.
Palacios, DM, MF Baumgartner, KL Laidre, and EJ Gregr. 2013.
Beyond correlation: integrating environmentally andbehaviourally mediated processes in models of marine mammal
distributions. Endangered Species Research 22: 191–203. doi:
10.3354/esr00558
Seidlecki, SA, A Hermann, N Bond, S Alin, and R Feely. 2014.
Hypoxia and ocean acidification of the coastal waters of the
Pacific Northwest: evaluation of seasonal predictions ofhypoxia and pH. Presentation at the 2014 Ocean Sciences
Meeting, Honolulu, HI.
Szuwalski, CS, KA Vert-Pre, AE Punt, TA Branch, and R Hilborn.
2014. Examining common assumptions about recruitment: ameta-analysis of recruitment dynamics for worldwide marine
fisheries. Fish and Fisheries 1467-2979. doi.org/10.1111/faf.12083.

The take-home message for FUTURE from the workshop
is that broader uptake of our knowledge products will
require clearly articulating the decision context to which
they contribute. The extent to which we can explicitly
inform the risks in the choices facing managers and policy
makers will influence the uptake of our science into
decision making. Casting our uncertainties as risks, andtargeting these results at the appropriate audiences, willfurther increase our contribution to evidence-based
decision making. Finally, by considering how we cancontribute to decisions that will be made in the future, theocean science community has an opportunity to move froma reactive, crisis-management role to proactive leadershipwhere best available science provides timely, salient, andsound advice to support ocean management decisions.

Acknowledgments
The author thanks the other convenors for their contributions
to the success of the workshop.

References
Gibson, GA and YH Spitz. 2011. Impacts of biological parameterization, initial conditions, and environmental forcing onparameter sensitivity and uncertainty in a marine ecosystemmodel for the Bering Sea. Journal of Marine Systems 88: 214–231.
Gregr, EJ and KMA Chan KMA. 2014. Leaps of Faith: How
implicit assumptions compromise the utility of ecosystemmodels for decision-making. BioScience. In review.

Summer 2014

Edward Gregr (ejgregr@gmail.com) is a marine ecologist withover 15 years’ experience in marine classification and marine
habitat suitability. He is currently completing his PhD at theInstitute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at the
University of British Columbia, Canada, focusing on trophic
cascades in nearshore ecosystems.

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PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2

ICES Symposium on the “Ecological basis of risk analysis for marine ecosystems”
by Alexei Orlov

Fig. 1 Participants of the ICES symposium “Ecological Basis of Risk Analysis for Marine Ecosystems”, June 2–4, 2014, at the Art Factory in Porvoo,
Finland.

The world’s marine ecosystems are facing an increasing
number of challenges. Fishing intensity is high, and there
are several other threats such as possible oil spills from
drilling and transportation, climate change, eutrophication,and risks associated with aquaculture. The aggregate
analysis of multiple interacting risk factors is a challenging
task for scientists. While risk assessment methods are wellestablished in scientific disciplines like finance, health, andinsurance, they are less established in resource management
and climate change.

(ICES/Finland), Dr. Tony Smith (ICES/Australia) and Dr.
Alexei Orlov (PICES/Russian Federation) (Fig. 2).
The aim of the symposium was to support ICES’ strategic
goal to evaluate the uncertainties related to the sustainabilityof marine-related industries and production of integrated
advice to decision makers. Further, it was to enhance cooperation between ICES and other bodies relevant to riskbased management of marine activities, and to broaden thediversity of scientists participating in these activities. In
providing scientific advice, one of the main tasks of ICES
advisory and scientific activities is to assess risks andincorporate risk analyses in an integrated and scientificallyjustified way and to successfully communicate these toscientists in other fields, to managers and to a wider
audience. This allows identification of potential risks andleads to better opportunities to manage or control these risks.

About 80 scientists from 18 countries (Australia, Canada,
Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan,
New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, Russia, United Kingdom, and USA) gathered
near the bank of the Porvoo River in the famous old city of
Porvoo, Finland, from June 2–4, 2014, for a symposium on
the “Ecological basis of risk analysis for marine
ecosystems” (Fig. 1).

The symposium was organized around six overarchingthemes: Fisheries management under uncertainty,
 Decision modelling in fisheries management, Probabilistic fish stock assessment,
 Oil spill and eutrophication risk analysis,
 Environmental risk assessment for marine areas, Risk analysis in aquaculture.

The ICES symposium was co-sponsored by PICES, the EU
Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), Year of the Gulf ofFinland 2014, The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies,
Maa-ja vesitekniikan tuki ry, and Finnish Cultural
Foundation and was convened by Professor Sakari Kuikka

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structure which describes the essential features of
population dynamics. The population can be structured by
one or more attributes. For example, age-growth andlength-species structures can be specified. The transitionof the population from one time step to the next is defined
as a probability distribution. This distribution is derived
from the assumption that individual fish are correlated due
to schooling behavior or patchiness in the environment.
Tailoring the GPDM to an assessment problem requires athorough search for existing information. An important partof the project was to develop ways to formulate theinformation found from literature, databases and experts
into prior probability distributions that describe how well
the biology of the population is known. Once thealternative model structures and prior distributions forparameters have been specified, the Bayesian approach is
to update these beliefs in light of observed assessment data.
Usually, the data are not very informative about most of theparameters but can provide new insights about parameter
combinations that pose a difficult computational challenge.
Session 1. Fisheries management under uncertainty. Thissession dealt with uncertainties from a range of sources that
contribute to difficult management processes. Presenters
tried to answer the following questions related to data-poor
stocks, climate-dependent productivity, complex systems
with high numbers of target and bycatch species, and social
behaviour by fishers, consumers and policy makers: How
can modellers and managers express risks inunderstandable and practically implementable ways? How
can management strategies be developed that are robust tothese sources of uncertainty? How can the acceptability ofrisks be determined in consistent processes? What can belearned from other disciplines applying risk analysis
methods?

Fig. 2 Two of the symposium convenors: (top) Prof. Sakari Kuikka,(bottom) Dr. Alexei Orlov.

The symposium (Fig. 3) was opened with a “welcome andopening” speech by the Vice-Rector of the University of
Helsinki, Prof. Pertti Panula. This was followed by apresentation by the Vice-Chairman of the ICES Advisory
Committee (ACOM), Dr. Carmen Fernandez (Germany),
who spoke on Bayesian solutions to ICES responsibilities.
The keynote talk by Prof. Samu Mäntyniemi (University of
Helsinki), described a Bayesian approach to fisheries stock
assessment used in the EU project ECOKNOWS (Effective
Use of Ecosystem and Biological Knowledge in Fisheries).
Despite their growing popularity, many of the Bayesianstock assessments have only partially followed the logic of
Bayesian reasoning. The most notable deviation has been
the idea borrowed from statistical data analysis, according
to which all the model parameters should be statistically
identifiable based on the observed data at hand. This has
led to the practice of using different model structures,
depending on the amount of data available. A goal of the
ECOKNOWS project was to develop a Bayesian stock
assessment modelling framework which allows forbiologically credible population dynamics and is able toquantify the uncertainty arising from the usual confoundingof the model parameters. The General Population
Dynamics Model (GPDM) was designed to have a modular
Summer 2014

There was a wide range of presentations regarding analysis
of risk assessment for fisheries management that involves
various sources of data (life history, environment, ecology,
economy, climate, etc.). Different methodical approaches,
software and databases used in current fisheries
management under data-limited conditions were considered
and discussed.
Session 2. Decision modelling in fisheries management.
This session focused on the following questions:
Modelling stocks is an essential component of fisheries
management but are models explicitly addressing thedecision-making processes used by fisheries managers?
How can we integrate ecological, social, economic andinstitutional aspects? Which variables are relevant for
stakeholders? How are model outputs displayed so thatmanagement problems and options can be efficiently
visualised to support decisions? How may we treat
tradeoffs? How do models provide feedback on pastdecisions? To what extent can fisheries models learn andpartially automate decision-making? Are there financial
instruments that can deal effectively with ecological risk?
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PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2

Fig. 3 The symposium in session.

The keynote presentation was given by a member of the
ECOKNOWS Scientific Advisory Board, Dr. Robert
Stephenson, (Canadian Fisheries Research Network). The
ECOKNOWS project represents a major initiative in thechallenge of improving fisheries assessment methods by
integrating new sources of biological knowledge and thestudy of the ecological basis for risk analysis for marine
ecosystems. An attempt has been made to put the
ECOKNOWS experience in context by looking at thedevelopments and progress related to this theme over the
past 30 years, and by looking forward at outstanding
questions and issues. Looking back, it is instructive tocompare the themes and methods of this meeting withthose, for example, of the 1998 Symposium on“Confronting uncertainty in the evaluation andimplementation of fisheries-management systems” (ICES
Journal of Marine Science 56:6, 1999). Looking forward,
it is important to consider how to address the challenges of
evolving domestic and international policies, the move to‘ecosystem’ and ‘integrated’ management, increasing
market (and general public) pressure for certification ofsustainability, and the need to obtain and maintain ‘social
license’. The evolving landscape of fishery evaluation andmanagement demands has increased participation in
management
processes
andsharedstewardship
responsibility, and must adapt to changes in both theecosystem and in public perception. Additionally, it isimportant to consider fisheries with other activities in morecomprehensive evaluations that can support management
decisions in an integrated context. Outstanding research
priorities include: (1) more holistic evaluations that take
into account the full suite of ecological, social, economic
and institutional objectives related to management;(2) methods to support management trade-offs among
diverse objectives and activities, and (3) methods that willallow consideration of the cumulative impacts of multiple
activities.

Other presentations considered and discussed various
examples of decision models with the use of different
approaches under different conditions.
Session 3. Probabilistic fish stock assessment. The key
questions of this session were: Fisheries assessment now
normally include uncertainty as an integral part of themodelling approach, but how consistently is uncertainty
applied in the many parameters of complex models, or in
the structure of the model itself? While there is an intuitive
expectation that reducing uncertainty is desirable, how canpriorities be set and the value of reducing relevant
individual uncertainties be judged? Are uncertainties on
ecological and socio-economic parameters treated the sameor differently? Do the assessment models learn from all
sources of information effectively?
The session was kicked off with keynote presentation by
Dr. Tony Smith (CSIRO, Australia) entitled “Add a little
spice to your life”. Much like cooking, the art of modelling is
knowing when to add that little bit of extra spice. The
number of foodweb and end-to-end models are growing in
number and coverage of the global oceans. While they are an
informative means of exploring system dynamics they are
not an appropriate risk assessment tool for many applications(such as tactical stock assessments). Nevertheless, experience
with such models and other multi-species methods isproviding insights into what kinds of ecological
idiosyncrasies can undermine the performance of population
dynamics with static parameters. Environmental drivers,
habitat dependencies, critical predator or prey linkages canshape population trajectories by creating bottlenecks at key
points in a stock’s life history. In addition, shifting
environmental regimes and ecosystem status highlight theimportance of considering non-stationary parameters – notjust for recruitment, but also size and natural mortality rates.
Not all of these additional concerns will always be relevant,37

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this is not a call for more complexity “just in case”. Instead,
it is a simple reminder that good model practice is toperiodically revise what are key processes, links andfeedbacks that need to be considered for the case in point, tocheck the assumptions. This is something that is being more
widely recognized as new hybrid and intermediate modeltypes proliferate and ocean ecosystems change around us. As
with any discipline in its early steps, however, a lot can belearnt from sharing lessons to date. Other presentations dealt
with various examples of probabilistic stock assessments
based on various methods, models, and approaches.

was a single poster, dealing with aquaculture-environment
interactions in Canada.
The poster session consisted of a dozen of posters that
focused on various aspects of risk assessments analysis formarine living resources.
The final event of the symposium was a discussion led by
Dr. Robert Stephenson who stimulated participants toformulate key issues that were considered during
symposium and those that were missed (Fig. 4). A special
issue in the ICES Journal of Marine Sciences has been set
to publish the results presented at this symposium.

Session 4. Oil spill and eutrophication risk analysis. Thissession addressed the questions: How are pollution andeutrophication risk analyses formulated? How the risks
caused by transportation of oil are linked to ecosystem
health? How are exposure and response impacts quantified?
How can management at multiple points along an exposure
pathway be focused on localized events and endpoints?
How are pollution risks built into broader fisheries, coastaland ocean use management models that include multiple,
potentially competing, uses of ecosystems? What kinds ofadvisory and stakeholder groups are needed to linkenvironmental and fisheries risk together?
The session consisted of five presentations by Finnish andGerman scientists and focused mainly on modelling of oil
spills in the Baltic and North Seas under various conditions.

Fig. 4 Final discussion convened by Dr. Robert Stephenson (Canada).

The steering committee of the symposium included Tapani
Pakarinen (Finland), Konstantinos Stergiou (Greece), John
Mumford (UK), Robert Stephenson (Canada), Atso
Romakkaniemi (Finland), Kirsi Hoviniemi (Finland),
Sakari Kuikka (Finland), Tony Smith (Australia), andAlexei Orlov (Russia).

Session 5. Environmental risk assessment for marine areas.
This session tried to answer the questions: To what extent
are environmental risk assessments in marine areas
different from terrestrial systems? How are acceptableendpoints determined in these complex systems? How can
the outputs of fishery risk assessments be incorporated into
wider marine ecosystem risk assessments?

Dr. Alexei Orlov (orlov@vniro.ru) is
Principal Scientist at the Laboratoryof Sea Fishes of the Russian Far East,
Russian Federal Research Institute ofFisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO),
Moscow, Russian Federation. He
maintains broad interests in taxonomy,
zoogeography, distribution, general
biology and stock assessment ofdemersal and deepwater fishes, mostly of the North Pacific andpartly of the North Atlantic. Alexei has worked in VNIRO for 28
years on a variety of commercial and bycatch groundfish species
with special interest related to elasmobranchs, lampreys andgrenadiers. He is the author of over 550 scientific and popularscience publications, including abstracts of conferences,monographs, and chapters. Alexei is the member of Moscow
Naturalists Society, European Ichthyological Society, Russian
Hydrobiological Society, American Fisheries Society, Asian
Fisheries Society, Fisheries Society of British Isles, IchthyologicalSociety of Japan, and Russian Geographic Society. He serves as
Executive Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Ichthyology,
Associated Editor for Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria and is amember of the Editorial Boards of the Russian journals Izvestiya
TINRO, Trudy VNIRO, and Vestnik AGTU Fisheries. In PICES heis a member of the BIO Committee.

Eight presentations by scientists from the USA and Europe
tried to review current approaches of evaluating
environmental risk assessment for various ecosystemcomponents using different tools (marine spatial planning,statistical models, etc.).
Session 6. Risk analysis in aquaculture. Production fromaquaculture is rapidly overtaking capture fisheries. Simple
harvest optimization has been applied to aquaculture
modelling but as production becomes more intensive andglobal, aquaculture must be managed with the expectationof risk. Moreover, aquaculture creates risk for ecosystems.
Risks to external (pollution, diseases and parasites, genetic
introgression, escapees) and internal (diseases, parasites,
genetic deterioration) effects of aquaculture need to be
included in aquaculture models. This session was expected
to answer two questions: Can general risk models beapplied to integrate the range of threats aquaculture faces?
How the risks could be incorporated in spatial planning?
Unfortunately, these questions did not receive sufficientscientific attention, and the session was cancelled. There
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Human dimensions in the Russian Federation – Effectiveness of ecosystemgovernance related to fishingby Ekaterina Kurilova
Effective ecosystem governance is based on a balance
between ecosystem sustainability, water bioresources
conservation and at the same time economic, cultural, andspiritual satisfaction of the community. To maintain thisbalance requires an integrated understanding of how
ecosystem changes affect human social systems, and how
humans impact ecosystems.

Main concepts of the fisheries legislation system in the
Russian Federation
Water bioresources (e.g., harvestable biomass) are regarded
as a basic component of human well-being. Therefore,
fisheries regulation is produced with the recognition thatnatural resources are an essential component and the basisof human activities and at the same time as an object ofprivate ownership. Priority is given to the conservation andrational use of water bioresources. Thus, waterbioresources can be used if human activity (harvest ofliving marine resources) does not damage the environment
and water bioresources status.

Such things as expectations, needs and satisfaction levelfrom ecosystem services of human communities should betaken into consideration. Social status and distance ofcommunities from the ocean are just two of the importantfactors related to ecosystem services values.

The principle and practice of the fisheries regulation systemin the Russian Federation is to invite representatives ofcoastal communities and fisheries associations toparticipate in the decision-making process if the decision
might influence the status of water bioresources. Needs ofthe local and native population in the areas, wheresubsistance fishing is the means of securing the necessities
of life, is taken into consideration. It is a priority to provide
the natives with access to water bioresources fishing.

One of the main difficulties is how to evaluate community
expectations and demands from ecosystem services in large
countries like the Russian Federation where different
communities have various expectations and historicalcultural experiences.
The Russian Far East coast is mostly occupied by small
cities and settlements, with the majority of the populationin these settlements engaged in fisheries. These people andsmall ethnic groups historically consider the ocean and its
products as a source for provision and survival, as fishingis an essential part of people’s daily life. Conversely,
people residing in big cities far from the coast are generally
more concerned, and value more the tendencies in theeconomy, such as the development of the fishing industry,
and coastal recreational and cultural services. People withhigher education level have higher expectations. However,both coastal and inland communities are dependent uponconservation of marine biodiversity and an opportunity toobtain marine ecosystem products.

Fisheries legislation
Fisheries legislation system is rather complicated in the
Russian Federation. Fisheries in the country is mainly
regulated by federal fisheries legislation (laws) describing
the general regulation. All the laws of the RussianFederation that regulate fishing activities in the Russian
EEZ comply with international legislative acts andagreements, in particular, the UN Convention on the Lawof the Sea (December 10, 1982), relating to theconservation and management of straddling (transboundary)fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks.
All fishery regulation laws are published in the media andavailable to all citizens. The central administrative authority
for fisheries management in the Russian Federation is theFederal Agency for Fisheries. Its main functions are:governmental control and supervision in fields of fisheries
and conservation of marine biological resources in the inland
waters of the Russian Federation (with the exception ofinland marine waters), state supervision of merchantshipping in terms of ensuring the navigation safety of fishingvessels in the fishing areas, public services and managementof the state property in the fields of fisheries, monitoring,sustainable usage, studies, conservation, and reproduction of
aquatic biological resources and their habitats, as well as
aquaculture (fish farming), processing of fish and otherFishermen in Aldoma Bay (photo courtesy of Okhotsk laboratory).

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factors. Two year forecasts and TAC are applied to themost valuable commercial water bioresources. For undercaught and little used species, so-called Permissible Catchis developed. However, some important fisheries, such as
salmon, do not have a TAC estimate. The reason is that
salmon returns are difficult to predict and often require
adjustment of the catch depending on actual run returns.
Increase or change in a TAC requires a series of formal
procedures which may take up to several months. For
salmon runs, the correction in allowed capture may need tobe approved in a matter of days, before the massive run ofsalmon ends. Thus, it was decided to apply “Permissible
Catch” regulation to salmon fisheries.

aquatic biological resources, production operations aboard
the fishing fleet and seaports within the marine terminals forfishing vessels servicing.
On the basis of the Federal laws the subject executive
bodies can issue legal texts on fisheries regulation andwater bioresources conservation. At the regional level
legislative councils may pass their own laws regulating
relations between local authorities and fishing companies.
However, regional laws and their provisions are developedin accordance with the Federal law on fisheries.
Detailed information on fishing gear requirements, fishing
restrictions concerning spawning periods and special
conservation areas are presented in Fishing Regulation
documents issued for each fisheries basin. There are eight
fisheries basins in the Russian Federation whoseboundaries include watersheds located on the land
territories of several regions – republics, oblasts, krais, etc.
(“oblast” and “krai” are analogs of the term “state”),
adjacent territorial and inner marine waters, and EEZ areas.
The Baikal fisheries basin includes freshwater bodies only.
Fishing Regulation documents are elaborated in accordancewith a particular fisheries basin peculiarities, taking into
account the needs of the local populations. This document
is also approved by the Federal Government, but its content
is discussed at the Fishery Research Councils of thesubjects of Russian Federation. Amendments to thisdocument can be proposed by any citizen. They arecollected by the branches of Federal Agency for Fisheries
and discussed by the scientific research organizations andstate authorities. These amendments are approved by thescience councils of the territory institutes and RussianFederal Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography.
After the amendments have been approved by theseCouncils, the Federal Government issues the Fishing
Regulation Document. The primary aim of this document isconservation and management of water bioresources.

Information enabling total allowable catch volume
estimation is developed by scientific research organizations,which conduct annual monitoring of water bioresources
status. The evidence is discussed at organized public
meetings with representatives of the community, fisheries
associations and authorities. After being approved, theevidentiary materials are passed to the State Expert
Commission for ecological examination. The Federal
Agency for Fisheries then prepares the order on TAC
followed by the order on quota allocation by different
fisheries types.

Fishery Research Councils (FRC) are established for eachfisheries basin. Their main task is to elaborate therecommendations and proposals on conservation andrational use of the water bioresources. These councils arecomposed of the representatives of federal executive bodies,
executive bodies of the subjects of Russian Federation,scientific research organizations, Fishery Basin Institutions
for the conservation and restoration, and representatives of
non-governmental organizations, including small ethnic
communities of the North, Siberia and the Far East.
Decisions of the Council are advisory. Management of the
FRC facilitates the transparency of decision-making in thefield of fishery regulation, amendments to the fisherylegislation and development of broader discussions.

Engagement of communities into developing total allowable catch (TAC)
levels of water bioresources, which include marine fisheries. (from apresentation by the author in S3 at the FUTURE OSM, April 2014).

Quota allocation
Salmon quotas are allocated among the companies withagreements for fishery plots (for 20 years). The catch
volume (%) of quota allocated to the company in theprevious years and economic indicators (such as taxes) arealso taken into account. The catch share of the quota
depends on the fishery plots. Allocation is made by theregional Commissions on regulation of harvesting theanadromous fish, which are composed of therepresentatives of fisheries enforcement organizations,fisheries associations, research institutes, and territorialadministration officers. Preference is given to companies

TAC determination
Total allowable catch (TAC) volume distribution isestimated in accordance with ecological, social and economic
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PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2that have proved successful in the past, as well as providing
more jobs for local people.

Fisheries
Fishing can be produced only for species whose catch is
not prohibited. All species in general have allowablefishing, except species which are protected (e.g., species in
the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
and Russian Red lists). The list of species for commercial
and coastal fishing is elaborated by the federal executive
body. The same legislative body adopts the list of thevaluable and the most valuable species. Special permission(or license) issued in accordance with Fishing Regulation is
generally needed to harvest fish (with the exception forrecreational fishing by rod but not for all species, plots andperiods). The license contains the list of allowed species
and catch volume for fishing. Red list species, or species
not allowed for catch (e.g., sturgeons), when captured in
bycatch must be released. The following types of fisheries
are distinguished.

Fishery plot allocations used to be provided for a 10 year
period; now they are provided for 20 years. Fishery plots
are allocated by the results of an auction. Applicants pay afee, which remains in the budget of the region. In addition
to considering a company’s financial contribution, priority
depends also on the performance characteristics of thecompany – employment of the local population, fisherycapacity, bid size and development of the quotas allocatedto the company for the past 4 years. If a specific fisheryplot has not been used by a company for two years, or thequota was less than 50% fulfilled, the government has theright to revoke the contract and put it up for auction.
This system encourages sustainable use of biologicalresources, because the company which has been allocated afishery plot for 20 years is interested in the long-termsustainability of the fishery in this plot, compliance withenvironmental legislation, and developing positive
outcomes of the company in order to continue getting
quotas and fishery plots. However, in this approach toquota allocation, a new user (company) without a work
history has almost no chance of getting commercial quotas.
The system is designed to limit the number of users.

Commercial fisheries
It is a business activity on water bioresources fishing,processing, transportation, conservation and fish production.
Fish products are to be delivered to the seaports in the
Russian Federation or other ports defined by the RussianFederation Government. Allocation of quota shares is given
to companies that historically fulfilled their prior quota
agreements.

For salmonids, there are no fishing areas in offshore sea,
only in the fresh and inshore waters. Auctions are used toallocate quotas on marine and fresh water species to which
TAC is applied. The main criteria considered in allocating
quotas are the history of the company, especially theamount of quota developed in the past. For nonanadromous species to which Permissible Catch rules apply,
quotas are allocated by the State Commission according by
applications, but they cannot exceed the Permissible Catch(volume). At reaching of the Permissible Catch limit,
fishing is closed or catch limits may be increased.

Coastal fisheries
Coastal fisheries can be conducted on the fishery plots. It
differs from the commercial fisheries by the coastal
regional authorities’ involvement in the fishery
management including establishment of fishery areas andlist of species for catch trans-shipment, landings and at-sea
processing.
Fisheries for scientific and research purposes
This type of fishery has the purpose of study andconservation of water bioresources. Scientific researchorganizations are allocated fishing quota on the basis ofannual research plans. A special license is needed. The
catch volume is determined in accordance with needs for a
research purpose. All water bioresources caught by ascientific organization are to be used only for scientificpurposes and should be released afterwards. If waterbioresources are used for bioanalysis, they must be groundup afterwards. If scientific research is conducted on thevessel, fish production process is prohibited. Fisheries
conducted for scientific and research purposes are
regulated by the Federal laws.
Fisheries for educational and cultural purposes
This type of fishery has the purpose of education andcultural activity. Research and educational organizations
are allocated fishing quota on the basis of annual
educational plans. The catch volume is determined inaccordance with needs for these purposes. Water
bioresources are to be used for educational purposes, such

Fish transportation near Plosky Cape. (Photo courtesy of Okhotsk
laboratory.)

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There is not a long history in the Russian Federation of
conducting social surveys as a means of a obtaining socioeconomic data. In the last years the number of websites
where you can express your opinion is increasing. An online
survey of Russian residents using a site popular withfisherman (www.fishnews.ru) was conducted to inquire
about key fisheries management and ecosystem issues. The
results of the online survey of Russian residents indicatedconcern about the effectiveness of fisheries, including
unlawful poaching of fish, and difficulty getting legally
captured fish to markets and sold. Additional fish marketingmight be suggested, as well as improvements in access topotential customers for fish.

as for displays at zoo exhibits and aquaparks. Fishery foreducational and cultural purposes is regulated by theFederal laws.
Fisheries for reproduction and naturalization purposes
This type of fishery has the purpose of water bioresources
conservation, aquaculture development, reproduction andnaturalization. Fishing quotas are distributed in accordancewith needs for these particular purposes on the basis ofprograms on artificial reproduction and naturalization activity.
Recreational and sport fisheries
Citizens are allowed to fish for free if it is not under the
restrictions in accordance with Fishing Regulation
Document. Captured organisms can either be released ornot. Special permission is needed to fish in a water
reservoir located on private property. Some areas are given
to entrepreneurs or organizations in order to organize asport fishing there. Recreational and sport fishing in someareas operated by entrepreneurs or organizations require
paid licenses.

Conclusions
The fisheries regulation system in the Russian Federation
has many advantages, but also some disadvantages. The
most obvious advantage is the combination of fish quotas,
catch shares and 20 year fishery area allocations. This
process provides favorable conditions for investments into
the fishery sector and encourages quota users to be more
responsible in relation to water bioresources andenvironmental legislation, because they are interested inlong-term cooperation and sustainable fish resources in the
allocated plots. At the same time, fishery sector on the mostvaluable commercial species are effectively closed (limited
entry) to companies without a prior and long fishery history,
as the past performance at meeting quota levels is one of
the most important considerations in a quota distribution
auction on TAC species. Users without a fishery history arewelcome to participate in non-anadromous fisheries thatare managed using the Permissible Catch criterion.

Fisheries as the means of securing the necessities of life ofnative small ethnic communities
Members of small ethnic communities may fish without alicense or allocated fisheries plot as a means of securing thenecessities of life.
Conservation and management measures
State monitoring is a system of regular observations on
status, distribution, abundance, reproduction, fishery andconservation of water bioresources. Fisheries andconservation are important components of these observations.
The data obtained during the monitoring are applied to theassessment of biological status and abundance of waterbioresources, and for elaboration of the measures on rationaluse and conservation of water bioresources, including
elaboration of the fishery restrictions.

Aquaculture of marine species has not been properly
regulated in the country and therefore was not very popular.
Russia was not one of the top 15 producers of the 38
million tonnes of aquaculture fish in 2012 (SOFIA-2014,
The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture report). Notlong ago, the Law on Aquaculture in the RussianFederation was established, and is expected to become thebasis for aquaculture development in the country.

Monitoring of water bioresources and fishing vessels is doneby the Center for Fishery Monitoring and Communications,which collects, analyzes, stores and transmits data on
location of fishing and research vessels (both Russian andforeign), provides satellite positioning control of fishingvessels, and submits information to federal authorities.

A disadvantage of the fishery legislation system in the
Russian Federation is the rather complicated procedure foramending the law; that requires too much time fordecision-making. It is almost impossible to alter TAC, forexample, because of the complexity of the TAC approval
process. That is why salmonid species were included in the
Permissible Catch regulation. It was done for better fisheryregulation of these commercially valuable species.
Fisheries Regulation Documents that are issued for theeight fisheries basins lack flexibility. For instance, there isno mechanism to temporarily suspend implemented
legislative acts.

Russia has no state integrated programs based on social andeconomic studies directly related to marine ecosystemmanagement, such as IFRAME (Korea) or IEA (USA) andPNCIMA (Canada). Scientific research fisheries institutes in
Russia estimate the potential loss of economic value of
ecosystem resources as a result of anthropogenic activity(e.g., construction of seaports, bridges, pipelines, etc.).
Integrated analysis is needed to better understand socialcultural and economical issues of society and how these canbe used to implement more effective management of marine
ecosystem resources.

While flexibility in management is a concern at the basin
level, there are some examples of effective local fishing(Continued on page 48)

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Microbial Culture Collection at the National Institute for Environmental Studies,
Tsukuba, Japanby Masanobu Kawachi and Mary-Hélène NoëlMCC-NIES team (from left to right): Ishimoto (Charales curator), Yumoto (curator, DNA), Mori (curator, cryopreservation), Kawachi (head), Matsui(assistant curator), Noël (curator, projects), Niitsuma (assistant curator, DNA), Sato (curator, flow cytometry), Shimura (Post-Doc, cyanobacteria), Fujii(secretary).

History and characteristics of the MCC-NIES collection

partially supported by the Time Capsule Project conductedby the Ministry of Environment of Japan since 2002.

The Microbial Culture Collection at the National Institutefor Environmental Studies (MCC-NIES), located in
Tsukuba, Japan, was founded as an “environmental studyoriented” culture collection in 1983 when eutrophication oflakes and rivers, and air and water pollution were severe in
Japan. The MCC-NIES started with ca. 250 strains mainlyof red-tide-forming algae (Chattonella antiqua andHeterosigma
akashiwo)
andwater-bloom-forming
cyanobacteria (Microcystis aeruginosa). Although the
MCC-NIES is still characterized by such types of strains,the collection now holds almost all eukaryotic lineages anda diversity of cyanobacteria, too. At present the collection
includes 18 phyla, 51 classes, 354 genera, 718 species and2,356 strains.

In 2002, the MCC-NIES was selected as the core repository
for algae in the National BioResource Project (NBRP)
conducted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
ScienceandTechnology
ofJapan(NBRP:
http://www.nbrp.jp). In this framework, more than 200
strains of Microcystis and Anabaena, collected from
representative eutrophic lakes all over Japan, were
deposited by the National Science Museum along withphylogenetically diverse strains of microalgae and protozoa
deposited by the University of Tsukuba. In addition, morethan 300 strains of cyanobacteria and eukaryotic
microalgae maintained at the IAM Collection (Universityof Tokyo) were transferred to the MCC-NIES up until theend of FY 2006, when the IAM Collection was closed.

Most of the MCC-NIES strains have been directly
deposited by researchers, but some have been depositedfrom exchanges with other collections. Around 80% of the
MCC-NIES strains were originally sourced from Japan,
giving the collection a high level of specificity.
This is also the only culture collection holding major
endangered macroalgae. The collection, which started exsitu conservation of endangered algae in Japan, has been in
operation since the mid-1990s. In the list of endangered
Japanese wildlife (the red list) compiled by the Ministry ofEnvironment of Japan in 2007, 116 taxa (species andvarieties) of algae are listed as extinct, extinct in the wild,or as endangered in Japan. At present, the MCC-NIES
holds ca. 300 strains of these endangered algae, including
Charales and freshwater red algae. The collection is

Charales strains maintained in MCC-NIES.

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Since the start of the collection, the Committee for
Evaluating Microbial Culture Strains has evaluated the
NIES strains upon deposition based on a set of criteria. At
present, the Committee includes nine researchers at NIES
and six supervisors outside NIES. In addition, since 2002
the MCC-NIES has been supervised by the Steering
Committee of the NBRP Algae.

The collection includes:
 Evolutionarily important species such as Mesostigma
viride (NIES-296) and charophytes (NIES-1601);
 Experimental materials that have been well-studied ingenomic, genetic, molecular, and physiological terms,
such as Cyanidioschyzon merolae (NIES-1332/10D),
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (NIES-2235/C-9), andThermosynechococcus elongatus (NIES-2133/BP-1);
 Ecologically significant species such as Prochlorococcus
marinus (NIES-2086) and Micromonas pusilla (NIES1411);
 Harmful algal species such as Microcystis aeruginosa(NIES-44) and Chattonella marina (NIES-3);
 Commercially useful strains such as Botryococcus
braunii (NIES-836), Porphyridium (NIES-1035) and
Chlorella vulgaris (NIES-227).

Maintenance of strains
About 3/4 of the NIES strains (~ 2,000 strains) aremaintained by subculturing under optimal and/or suboptimal conditions, mostly ranging from 5 to 25°C (37 or
45°C for thermophilic strains) and with a 4 to 50 µmol·
m–2·s–1 photon flux density in a 12-h-light:12-h-dark light
regime.

Test tube of Anabaena.

The strains are serially transferred at 10-day to 6-monthintervals. Specially designed software for the collection
allows a flexible gestion of the daily transfers. Maintenanceconditions differ with each algal strain and are individuallyindicated in the catalogue of strains on our web site.
To prevent the loss of strains during maintenance by
subculturing, we conduct weekly growth checks. Once a
year, we also check axenic strains for the absence ofbacteria by using several bacterial check media.
The remaining strains—about 600 including most of the
cyanobacterial strains and some of the green and red algal
strains—are cryopreserved only, in the vapor phase of
liquid nitrogen.

A. Thermosynechococcus (NIES-2133), B. Cyanidioschyzon (NIES-1332),
C. Microcystis (NIES-44), D. Chattonella (NIES-3), E. Botryococcus(NIES-836), F. Porphyridium (NIES-1035). Scale bar = 10 μm.

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MCC-NIES services
Most of the strains are available for education, research anddevelopment in accordance with the “Agreement for
distribution”. The MCC-NIES also provides genomic
DNA for worldwide distribution.

Packaging for worldwide distribution of culture strains.

Technical advice and follow-up of the distributed strains
are provided to customers. Usual time for delivery of anordered strain is 10 days as most of the strains aremaintained under active growth. For strains kept as
cryopreserved samples, the delay is longer since the MCCNIES first return the culture to active growth before
shipping it.
The MCC-NIES accepts the deposit of strains that areenvironmentally important, as well as those for basic andapplied studies. The collection also accepts the depositionof strain types of cyanobacteria and specimen types of
eukaryotic microalgae as frozen samples.

Upper: Subculture of strains in liquid or agar media. Lower: Cryopreserved strains in liquid nitrogen tanks.

Scientific names and phylogeny

Useful information relating to the DNA barcodes,
photosynthetic pigments, morphology and other relevant
literature are provided for each strain at our web site. The
MCC-NIES collection welcomes joint research andcollaborations; please contact us at mcc@nies.go.jp.
Japanese, English and French are the available languages
for any communication with the collection.

The scientific names of the NIES strains are given
primarily by the depositors. However, we have used DNA
sequencing (mostly of the 18S rRNA gene) to re-evaluate
the strains for which DNA sequence data have not yet beenreported. As a result, we have changed the scientific namesof the misidentified strains, although we have left theirformer names as “Formerly identified as.” We have also
added “Re-identified at NIES by DNA sequencing” in“Identified by” and, if the original scientific names of thesestrains were appropriate, we have simply indicated“Confirmed at NIES by DNA sequencing”, with genenames and accession numbers in “Gene data.” We are still
re-evaluating the remaining strains.

A culture collection is “team work”, each step being
important for the final state of the cultures (from washing,media preparation to sub-culturing, etc.). We take care of
the culture strains as much as possible and hope to share
our passion for microalgae.

Dr. Masanobu Kawachi (kawach9i@nies.go.jp) is a microalgae taxonomist working at the National Institute for Environmental Studies
based at Tsukuba, Japan. Since 2012, he has been the head of the Microbial Culture Collection. As a Ph.D. student, Masanobu revealed
the food capturing role of the haptonema for the haptophyte Chrysochromulina. He spent 6 months at an Antartica research base, andtravelled worldwide to collect microalgae samples from various environments. With co-workers he is involved in the discovery of a newclass, the Pinguiophyceae, having specific fatty acid content. Taxonomic revision of Chattonella and toxic cyanobacteria are among thefields of research he is working on. He is currently participating in several research projects: on coral symbionts with global warming
concerns, picoplankton diversity with the environmental DNA analysis, and biofuel production from microalgae.
Dr. Mary-Hélène Noël (noel.mary-helene@nies.go.jp) came to the National Institute for Environmental Studies in 1996 as a Post-Doc
right after her Ph.D. graduation from the University of Paris XII, CNRS 386 / E.N.S. With a background in marine biogeochemistry, shespent the first 4 years at the Water and Soil Division of NIES, then started to work on the coccolithophorid life cycle at the Biological
Division and MCC-NIES. Her participation to the culture collection consists of recovering the strains with growth troubles, adapting
strains, and providing advice to customers internationally. She is also involved in research projects on marine picoplankton diversity andlife cycle studies.

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The Bering Sea: Current status and recent trends
by Lisa Eisner2014 (Fig. 2). The latter event occurred at a time when thesea ice extended to near the Pribilof Islands. The maximum
extent of the sea ice was considerably less, and the retreatof the ice edge to the north was earlier than during theheavy ice years of the recent past. This meant an early
onset of warming in the spring of 2014; by mid-May, sea
surface temperatures on the central and southern portion of
the shelf were 1–1.5°C above normal.

Climate and oceanography
Overall, the eastern Bering Sea shelf experienced muchdifferent weather during the past cold season of 2013–14.
Specifically, it was 1–2°C warmer than normal for theperiod of October 2013 through March 2014 comparedwith the relatively cold temperatures that have prevailed
since 2007. The past cold season included anomalously
high sea level pressure (SLP) from eastern Siberia acrossthe Gulf of Alaska (Fig. 1). The consequence for the mean
winds was weak anomalies from the north along the shelfbreak between the Bering Sea shelf and the deep basin, andweak anomalies from the south near the west coast of
mainland Alaska.
The warm weather can be attributed mostly to relatively
warm and moist air over the Bering Sea shelf. This warm
air was due to a ridge of anomalously high geopotential
heights aloft, centered over the Gulf of Alaska and extending
into mainland Alaska. These conditions produced greater
downward longwave radiation fluxes than normal over the
Bering Sea shelf and Alaska. The result was a reduced rateof cooling of the ocean over the shelf, and less tendency forthe development of extremely cold air masses over Alaska,
the usual source of the lower-atmospheric flow for the
Bering Sea shelf.

Fig. 1The only prominent and multi-day cold snaps at St. Paul,for example, were during mid-February and mid-March

Fig. 2NOAA sea level pressure (mb) composite anomaly (deviations
from 1981–2010 climatology) for October 2013–March 2014.
Figure courtesy of N. Bond.

Daily air temperature (°F) at St. Paul Island October 2013–March 2014. The reddish and aqua lines at the top and bottom, respectively, refer tothe all time high and low temperatures for each date; the tan lines in the center refer to the average daily high and low temperatures for eachdate. The period of record is 1892 to present. Figure courtesy of N. Bond.

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Fig. 3 Eastern Bering Sea ecosystem assessment indicators. * indicates time series updated in 2013.

mean is driven primarily by the increase in Pacific codfrom low levels in the early 2000s. Arrowtooth flounder,
while still above its long-term mean, has declined nearly
50% from the early 2000s, although this may be due to a
distributional shift in response to colder water over the last
few years rather than a population decline. Thick-billedmurre reproductive success on St. George Island was above
average in 2013, suggesting that foraging conditions werefavorable for piscivorous seabirds.

Eastern Bering Sea ecosystem considerations
Highlights from the 2013 eastern Bering Sea ecosystem
considerations chapter (Fig. 3) compiled by the Alaska
Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) indicate that survey
biomass of motile epifauna has been above its long-termmean since 2010 and fairly stable since the early 1990s.
However, the trend of the last 30 years shows a decrease incrustaceans (especially commercial crabs) and a long-term
increase in echinoderms, including brittle stars, sea stars,
and sea urchins. It is not known if this reflects changes insurvey methodology rather than actual trends. Survey
biomass of benthic foragers has remained stable since
1982, with interannual variability driven by short-term
fluctuations in yellow fin and rock sole abundance. In
contrast, survey biomass of pelagic foragers has increased
steadily since 2009 and is currently above its 30-year mean.
While this is primarily driven by the increase in walleye
pollock from its historical low in 2009, it also reflects
increases in capelin from 2009–2013, perhaps due to cold
conditions prevalent in recent years. The springtime larval
drift patterns for 2013, based on Ocean Surface Current
Simulations (OSCURS) model time series runs, do notappear to be consistent with years of good recruitment for
winter-spawning flatfish such as northern rock sole,arrowtooth flounder and flathead sole.

Jellyfish, primarily Chrysaora melanaster, remained abundantin the summer 2013 surveys, although catch per unit effort(CPUE) was down slightly from 2012. The years 2009–2013 continue a trend of higher abundance, relative to theyears 2001–2008 when catch rates of jellyfish were low.
For additional information on ecosystem indicators, see
http://access.afsc.noaa.gov/reem/ecoweb/index.php.
Eastern Bering Sea spring mooring survey
The spring mooring survey conducted by the Pacific
Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) and AFSC
Fisheries Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (FOCI)
occurred May 6–17, 2014, onboard the R/V Oscar Dyson.
Oceanographic variables and zooplankton were sampledaround Unimak Pass, along the 70 m isobath, off the shelfand over Bering Canyon. Six moorings were deployed in
the southeastern Bering Sea. Since 2014 may be a warm
year, additional analyses (primary productivity experiments

Fish apex predator survey biomass is currently near its
30-year mean. The increase since 2009 back towards the47

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North Pacific Marine Science Organization2014 will be the first year without a western Bering Sea
salmon survey by TINRO, Russia.

and microzooplankton identification) were done to better
understand the effects of a warming climate on lower trophic
levels. Preliminary observations suggest that zooplankton,
jellyfish and icthyoplankton were patchily distributed along
the 70 m isobath.

Upcoming meetings
Meetings in the second half of 2014 and early 2015 ofinterest to scientists working in the Bering Sea include: PICES-2014, October 17–26, 2014, Yeosu, Korea;
 9th International Flatfish Symposium, November 9–14,
2014, Cle Elum, WA, USA;
 Alaska Marine Science Symposium, January 2015,
Anchorage, AK, USA; 3rd PICES/ICES/IOC Symposium on “Effects of Climate
Change on the World’s Oceans”, March 23–27, 2015,
Santos City, Brazil.
Acknowledgements Many thanks to the following scientists
who helped create this report: Dr. Nicholas Bond (NOAA,
PMEL), Colleen Harpold (NOAA, AFSC), Dr. Carol Ladd
(NOAA, PMEL), Dr. Kim Martini (NOAA, PMEL), Dr. Olga
Temnykh (TINRO, Russia), and Dr. Stephani Zador (NOAA,
AFSC).

Photo from spring mooring cruise, courtesy of K. Martini.

_____________________________________________________

Recent and future 2014 Bering Sea fisheries oceanography
surveysSurveys in 2014 include: Eastern Bering Sea Spring Ichthyoplankton, AFSC, R/V
Oscar Dyson, May 20–June 8;
 Eastern Bering Sea Bottom Trawl, AFSC, F/Vs
Vesteraalen and Alaska Knight, June 1–August 11; Aleutian Islands Bottom Trawl, AFSC, F/Vs Sea Stormand Alaska Provider, June 5–August 15;
 Eastern Bering Sea Pollock Echo Integration Trawl(EIT), AFSC, R/V Oscar Dyson, June 12–August 13;
 Western Bering Sea Pollock Trawl-Acoustic, TINRO,
Russia, R/V TINRO, August 10–September 4;
 Bering Arctic Subarctic Integrated Survey (BASIS),
southeastern Bering Sea fisheries oceanography, AFSC
and PMEL, R/V Dyson, August 17–October 14;
 North Bering Sea Pelagic Trawl, Alaska Department ofFish and Game and AFSC, F/V Alaskan Endeavor,
August 31–September 24.

Dr. Lisa Eisner (lisa.eisner@noaa.gov) is a Biological/Fisheries
Oceanographer at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center of NOAAFisheries in Juneau, Alaska and Seattle, Washington. Her
research focuses on oceanographic processes that influence
phytoplankton and zooplankton dynamics and fisheries in theeastern Bering Sea. She has been the lead oceanographer for the
U.S. component of the BASIS program (Bering Aleutian Salmon
International Surveys). She is a scientific steering committee
member of NOAA’s Fisheries and the Environment program(FATE) and a co-PI on current (and past) eastern Bering Sea andChukchi Sea research programs.

(Continued from page 42)

regulation policy being implemented. For much of thecoastal populations in the Okhotsk Sea area, fishing,especially on herring in coastal areas, is the only source ofincome. Heavy ice conditions in coastal areas in 2008
prevented access to the traditional and regulated fishinggrounds, and herring catches plummeted. Only the estuarine

regions were sufficiently ice free to catch spawning herring,but these regions under existing regulations were not open to
herring fishing.
Through the joint effort of local
communities, scientists and government, the regulations werechanged to permit herring to be fished in the estuary since2009, restoring basic income to local residents.

Ekaterina P. Kurilova (katy_k07@mail.ru) is a linguist and an assistant director in the Khabarovsk branch of
TINRO-Center, Russian Federation. She works in an administrative department and deals with international
cooperation of the Institute. Her particular interests focus on intercultural communication aspects, as well as theprocess of communication in general. She studies the problem of influencing public opinion via mass media,
communicating science and social impacts of fisheries management in Russia. Since 2012, she has been a memberof the PICES Section on Human Dimensions of Marine Systems.

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The state of the western North Pacific in the second half of 2013
by Takashi Yoshida
was enhanced to the south of Japan and extended to eastern
China and western Japan. The enhancement broughtsignificantly positive SST anomalies in the seas around theNortheast Asian countries, especially in August (Fig. 1).

The western North Pacific in the second half of 2013 wascharacterized by a significantly warm summer. In the North
Pacific, remarkably positive sea surface temperature (SST)
anomalies were seen over a large area north of 30°N insummer. During July and August, the North Pacific High

Fig. 1 Monthly mean sea surface temperature (upper), SST anomalies (middle) and sea level pressure (SLP) anomalies (bottom) for July and August
2013. Monthly mean SSTs and SLPs are based on JMA’s COBE-SST (Centennial in situ Observation-Based Estimates of variability of SST andmarine meteorological variables) and JRA-55 (Japanese 55-year Reanalysis), respectively. Anomalies are deviations from 1981–2010
climatology.

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Fig.2

North Pacific Marine Science Organization

Monthly mean SST anomalies from September to December 2013.

Fig.3 Time series of Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) index from January 2001 to March 2014.
an inter-decadal time scale usually covering more than 10 years.
Recently (since mid-2010), the negative phase of the PDO withpositive SST anomalies in the central part of the North Pacific has
been occurring frequently (Fig. 3).

Several impacts of the significant warm climate on fisheries andaquatic life were reported. In the Okhotsk Sea, coastal fishermen
experienced unusual yellowtail catches in their salmon fixed nets
from August to October. Fishermen also experienced unusual
bluefin tuna catches in the Oyashio region, the sea southeast of
Hokkaido, usually occupied by cold subarctic waters where tuna
have been rarely caught. Warmer water temperatures delayed thesouthwest migration of Pacific saury, causing its short supply inearly September. Slower growth of oysters in several Japaneseoyster farms and coral bleaching in Okinawa were observed inthese months, which are also considered to be impacts of thewarm episode.

Dr. Takashi Yoshida (tyoshida@met.kishou.go.jp) is the Head of
the Office of Marine Prediction at the Japan Meteorological
Agency in Tokyo. His group is tasked with issuing various
oceanographic products, including wave analysis, coastal sea
levelmonitoring,ocean
temperatureandcurrent
monitoring, sea ice analysis andtheir forecasts. He was involvedin PICES as a member ofWorking Group 6 on “Subarctic
Gyre” and contributed Western
Pacific assessments to PICES
Press previously in the 1990s.

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which had positive andnegative SST anomalies in the central and eastern parts of theNorth Pacific, respectively, was in the negative phase throughout
almost the whole year, although the pattern was slightly obscurefrom summer to autumn 2013 (Fig. 2). The PDO is an SST
anomaly pattern of Pacific climate variability that shifts phases on

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Unusual warming in the Gulf of Alaska
by Howard Freeland and Frank Whitney
at a pressure of 4 decibars to avoid pumping surface films
into the conductivity cell. In Figure 1b Argo data wereinterpolated to Ocean Station Papa (50°N and 145°W) andaveraged over all Januaries from the start of the Argo
program in the Gulf of Alaska in 2002 to the present time.
The temperature, salinity and density (σt) are colored red,green and black, respectively, and the horizontal lines
indicate the mean values computed from 2002 through2013. The final point shows the recently observed values
for January 2014, and the annotations indicate the value asa mean plus anomaly in standard deviations. The Argo
data verify the very large temperature departures seen in
Figure 1a, with an anomaly of 4.4 standard deviations fromthe mean in temperature, and similar large deviations insalinity. We note that high temperature anomalies coupledwith low salinity anomalies both act to reduce density.
Hence we see very large anomalies in surface density thatmust act to impede mixing near Station Papa, and likely
over the entire region of SST anomaly.

In March 2014 there was something very unusual occurringin the Northeast (NE) Pacific that might have substantial
consequences for biota in the Gulf of Alaska andsouthward into the subtropics. A quick examination of the
Reynolds sea surface temperature (SST) data set shows
considerably higher than normal temperatures in early 2014.
Each month since November 1981, these data have been
published by NOAA/NCEP (ftp://ftp.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/c
mb/sst/oimonth_v2/) and represent the best estimate of the
SST in the global oceans (see also Reynolds et al., 2007).
A January mean state, including a field of standard
deviations, for the N.E. Pacific was computed by averaging
the SST fields for all Januaries from 1982 to 2013 inclusive.
An anomaly field was then computed for January 2014 by
subtracting the mean state and normalising by the field ofstandard deviations. Similar calculations were done for
February 2014.
In January 2014 (Fig. 1a), we see SST departures of 4.5
standard deviations or ~3°C from the long-term mean,centered on 42°N 148°W. The anomaly field covers a large
region of the N.E. Pacific in January 2014 and (not shown)a similar area in February, though the peak anomalies areslightly smaller. The black dots show the nominal locationsof the stations comprising Line-P, for later reference. The
authors of this article have never seen deviations fromnormal of 4.5 standard deviations before, despite extensive
work with the Line-P data set. The warming event first
appeared in November 2013, becoming strongest in
January (Fig. 1a), and lasting into February 2014.

To complete the description of the physical field, Figure 1cshows the distribution along Line-P of the temperature
anomaly fields in January 2014. The temperature field has
been computed using objective analysis to interpolate fromall Argo profiles available in a 10-day window centred on
the 15th day of January, and using a Gaussian covariancefunction with an e-folding scale of 400 km (see Bretherton
et al., 1976, for a description of the methods). The meanstate used to compute the temperature anomalies is fromMarie Robert (Robert, 1994), which used all observations
from 1956 to 1991. The section in Figure 1c shows thevery strong warming and demonstrates that the event isprimarily restricted to the upper 100 metres of the watercolumn with possibly slight warming in deeper waters.
The equivalent plot for salinity (not shown) has a similar
behaviour with little influence below the top 100 metres.

Something as extraordinary as a 4.5-sigma deviation
requires corroboration, and for that purpose we examined
Argo data, which are not ingested by the Reynolds data sets.
The reason for this exclusion is that Argo floats sample
during their ascent phase, and the CTD pump is turned off

Fig. 1 Temperature and salinity in the N.E. Pacific in January 2014. Panel (a) shows the January 2014 SST anomalies (in standard deviations) from the
1982–2013 Reynolds NOAA/NCEP mean January state. Panel (b) shows January temperature (red), salinity (green) and density (σ t; black)departures from the 2002–2013 mean state (horizontal lines) at Ocean Station Papa. Panel (c) shows temperature anomalies (°C) contoured
versus depth and distance along Line-P in January 2014.

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Fig.2

North Pacific Marine Science Organization(a) Sea surface temperature (SST) and 1000 mbar wind anomalies for January 2014 in the North Pacific Ocean. SST anomaly (color bar) andwind speed (arrow) scales are shown at bottom; plots are generated by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia
University, NY on their website http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu using data from the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis and the NOAA OISSTv2 dataset (Kalnay etal., 1996; Reynolds et al., 2007). The black rectangle outlines the region assessed in Panel b. (b)Average SeaWiFS and MODIS chlorophyll a for
January, as well as January 2014 MODIS chlorophyll, are plotted against latitude for the region between 140–150°W (data from the Giovanni
online data system, developed and maintained by the NASA GES DISC).

Wind anomalies (Fig. 2a) show the cause of the warm
anomalies in the ocean’s surface layer to be an unusual
flow from the south as the North Pacific high pressure cell
expanded northward. This pattern disrupted the path of thewesterly winds that cross the subarctic Pacific, winds that
normally transport nutrients from the subarctic North
Pacific into the subtropics during winter (Ayers and Lozier,2010; Whitney et al., 2013). In most years, a winter regionof high productivity is created by this Ekman transport
which reaches as far south as 30–32°N in the N.E. Pacific(Bograd et al., 2004). Named the Transition Zone
Chlorophyll Front (TZCF), it is an important feeding area
for migratory fish and seabirds (Block et al., 2011).

from the subarctic into the subtropics this past winter will
dramatically reduce the productivity of the eastern
subtropics over an area of ~17,000 km2 (20 Longitude 
240 km northward displacement of the TZCF). One
possible outcome might be a northward shift of thealbacore tuna fishery in 2014.
References
Ayers, J. M., and M. S. Lozier (2010), Physical controls on theseasonal migration of the North Pacific transition zone
chlorophyll front. J. Geophys. Res. 115, C05001, doi:10.1029/
2009JC005596.
Block, B.A. et al. (2011), Tracking apex marine predator movements
in a dynamic ocean. Nature 475, 86–90, doi:10.1038/nature10082.
Bograd, S. J. et al. (2004), On the seasonal and interannual
migrations of the transition zone chlorophyll front, Geophys.
Res. Lett., 31, L17204, doi:10.1029/2004GL020637.
Bretherton, F. P., R. E. Davis, and C. B. Fandry (1976), A
technique for objective analysis and design of oceanic
experiments. Deep-Sea Res., 23, 559–582.
Kalnay, E. et al. (1996), The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis
Project. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 77, 437–471.
Reynolds, R. W. et al. (2007), Daily high-resolution blended
analyses for sea surface temperature. J. Climate, 20, 5473–5496.
Robert, M. 1994. A study of El Niño events along the British
Columbia coast. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic
Sciences, McGill University, M.Sc. thesis.
Whitney, F. A., S. Bograd, and T. Ono (2013), Nutrient enrichmentof the subarctic Pacific Ocean pycnocline. Geophys. Res. Lett.
40, 1–6, doi:10.1002/grl.50439.

Without nutrients from the subarctic, the productivity ofsubtropical waters must decline. To assess impacts of thewarm anomaly on ocean productivity, satellite chlorophyll
between 140 and 150°W was averaged in 2 degree bins
between 20 and 50°N. South of the warm anomaly between
22 and 40°N, January chlorophyll a was well below the
SeaWiFS (1998–2010) and MODIS (2003–2014) averages
in 2014 (Fig. 2b). Consequently, the TZCF (identified as
0.2 mg chl m–3) was located 240 km north of its average
location over the previous 16 years. Between 30–40°N,
surface chlorophyll dropped to 60% of the average values.
Top predators may be able to locate the chlorophyll front
since they are accustomed to travelling great distances intheir search for prey. However, weakened nutrient transport

Dr. Howard Freeland (Howard.Freeland@dfo-mpo.gc.ca) is a scientist emeritus at theInstitute of Ocean Sciences. Despite his retirement, he maintains a keen interest in the Argo
program and ocean climate change. (In this picture he is seen launching yet another Argo
float.)
Frank Whitney (whitneyf@shaw.ca) retired from Fisheries
and Oceans Canada in 2006. He has remained interested inchemical processes impacting the productivity of the ocean,
whether it is nutrient supply to surface waters or hypoxia at
depth. Recent papers (J. Oceanogr. 67: 481–492; GRL 40:
1–6) summarized some of the trends he and colleagues
observed over a span of 25 years or more in the subarctic Pacific. (In this photo, Frank is studying acommon type of tube worm that barbecues quite nicely onboard ship.)Summer 201452

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PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2

Obituary – Dr. Toshiro Saino
by Sanae Chiba
A few months have quickly passed
since we lost our colleague, friend
and mentor, Dr. Toshiro Saino. He
passed away on April 17th in
Yokohama, Japan, just one week
after the cherry blossom season
ended. In Buddhism, one mustcomplete a seven-week journey toreach the Heavens after he/she has
left this side of the world. Every
week, a task is given, such as crossing the river by paying
special coins to the boatman (so we put a special traveler’sburial clothes on him/her with those coins in its wallet).
The fifth week is the climax, when one must pass thequalification interview with the Emperor of Hell. I imagine
how Saino-san took that interview, and am sure he could
outcompete the Emperor in debate quite confidently. Now I
can see him enjoying discussions with past famousscientists in history far up there, of course sipping
Heaven’s best whiskey, sake or whatever…. I just cannot
help but imagine it that way.

profiling buoy system, aiming to make possible the semi-realtime observation of primary productivity. After moving from
Nagoya University to JAMSTEC in 2008, he led time-series
observation projects using the profiling buoy system, with
one deployed in the subarctic and the other in the subtropicalwestern North Pacific.

Saino-san was probably most familiar to the recent PICES
community as the Co-Chair of the Section on Carbon andClimate. He was Japan’s leading biogeochemist and ocean
color scientist who had been promoting a number ofdomestic and international programs in these areas. He was amember of the JGOFS Scientific Steering Committee
starting in the 1990s and served on its Executive Committee
until the program ended in the mid-2000s. Starting his
science career with studies of nitrogen fixation physiology of
Trichodesmium in the late 1970s at the University of Tokyo,
he made important contributions on a wide range of subjects
concerning the ocean nitrogen cycle, such as development ofa stable isotope technique for measuring nitrogen fixation in
the sea and methods for estimating nitrate and new
production from remote sensing. More recently, he launched
the project for development of an ocean productivity

Testing the Ocean Productivity Profiling System.

I personally came to know Saino-san when I was a
graduate student of the Tokyo University of Fisheries.
When I applied for a Postdoc position at JAMSTEC, he
was one of the interviewers at that very scary, serious
interview session. I successfully got the post and Saino-san
became my boss, who was dignified but very approachable.
We worked together on the retrospective analysis of longterm ecosystem change over the North Pacific by collecting
and re-analyzing historical plankton samples and data suchas the Odate Collection that the Fisheries Research Agency
possessed. He was an advocate for the Odate Project, bywhich our understanding of marine ecosystem responses in
the western North Pacific to climatic forcing, such as the
Pacific Decadal Oscillation, was greatly improved.

Group photo of the Section on Carbon and Climate meeting at PICES-2011 in Khabarovsk, Russia. Left to right: Dong-Jin Kang, Jim Christian (S-CC
Co-Chairman), Pavel Tishchenko, Alex Kozyr, Toshiro Saino (S-CC Co-Chairman), Toru Suzuki, Akihiko Murata and Minhai Dai.

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Saino-san with Drs. Shuichi Watanabe and Toru Suzuki at PICES-2002.

PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2
Saino-san always expanded his scientific interests toward
new perspectives and methods whenever he found it
challenging. He was a fully internationally active
oceanographer who conducted his projects in the global
context, loved to work with international colleagues, andencouraged others to go global, as ocean science is global.
That is why he had so many good friends all over the world.
Throughout his professor career at the University of Tokyo
and Nagoya University, he played a role as a mentor ofmany capable young scientists, among which were excellent
overseas students who are now world leading
oceanographers. It was really impressive that there were somany messages of condolence from overseas at his funeral.
I must also mention that he was a supporter of womenscientists in Japan, where the ceiling is often visible rather
than just made of glass.

Saino-san earning the name “in-Saino”, with Alex Kozyr and Alex
Bychkov during a JGOFS N. Pacific Synthesis Group meeting, 2003.

Besides science, I should write here about his lovablecharacter. He had a large collection of rhinoceros goods in his
office because he related its Japanese name “sai” to himself.
On celebration of Saino-san’s Japanese Oceanographic SocietyAward, one of us even tried to find a gift of a rhino crystal
figure in the flagship shop of Swarovski in Vienna where heattended the EGU meeting. He insisted that he desperately
needed a rhino, and ended up having thoroughly confused theshop clerk who suggested an elephant and other animals
because they had no rhino products and did not understandwhy it must be a rhino. That anecdote always makes me smile.
Saino-san was known as a great host at his home BBQ parties.
Yet not so many know that he was a highly skilled Kendo(Japanese fencing) player; the 4th grade is only given to, well,“Samurai-level” competitors. Indeed, he was a Samurai while
he was fighting with cancer, brave and positive, and worked
hard as always even in such bad condition. Also, he was ascientist, who thoughtfully did the research, critically analyzed
the symptoms, and tried new treatments. We believed he could
have pulled through.

Saino-san and Fei Chai enjoying dinner with wine, and watching thesunset on a Maine lake, 2006.

Saino-san leaves behind his wife Fumiko Saino, a daughter,two sons and two grandchildren. And a third grandchild is
expected soon. Saino-san has left us, but he sowed a lot ofseeds of ocean scientists over the world. I end this obituarywith my favorite quote of Oscar Wilde,“To live is the rarest thing in the world, most people justexist, that is all.”Saino-san lived.

Invited speakers, Drs. Toshiro Saino and Michael Behrenfeld,
PICES-2007.

I thank Drs. Jim Christian, Joaquim Goes, Takashi Ishimaru,
Toru Suzuki and Fei Chai, who shared information and photos
for this article.

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Program of topic sessions and workshops at PICES-2014
 Science Board Symposium (S1): Toward a better
understanding of the North Pacific: Reflecting on the past andsteering for the future BIO Topic Session (S2): Strengths and limitations of habitat
modeling: Techniques, data sources, and predictive
capabilities
 BIO/MEQ Topic Session (S3): Tipping points: definingreference points for ecological indicators of multiple stressors
in coastal and marine ecosystem
Co-sponsored by the International Council for the
Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and Integrated Marine
Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER)
 BIO/MONITOR/TCODE Topic Session (S4): Use of longtime series of plankton to inform decisions in management
and policy concerning climate, ecosystems and fisheries
 FIS Topic Session (S5): Ecosystem considerations infishery management of cod and other important demersal
species
Co-sponsored by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) FIS/FUTURE Topic Session (S6): Climate change impacts on spatial distributions of marine fish and shellfish
 FIS/TCODE/FUTURE Topic Session (S7): Recent assessments of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems
Co-sponsored by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) MEQ Topic Session (S8): Marine debris in the Ocean: Sources, transport, fate and effects of macro- and micro-plastics
Co-sponsored by the Group of Experts on Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution (GESAMP), International Council for
the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and the Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP) POC/MONITOR Topic Session (S9): Variability in advection and its biological consequences for Subarctic andArctic ecosystems
Co-sponsored by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) POC/TCODE/FUTURE Topic Session (S10): Regional climate modeling in the North Pacific MarWeB Topic Session (S11): Ecological and human social analyses and issues relating to Integrated Multi Trophic
Aquaculture BIO, FIS, MEQ, POC contributed paper sessions
 FIS Workshop (W1): Dynamics of pelagic fish in the North Pacific under climate change
Co-sponsored by the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-like Species in the North Pacific Ocean (ISC) FIS Workshop (W2): Linkages between the winter distribution of Pacific salmon and their marine ecosystems andhow this might be altered with climate change
Co-sponsored by the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC) MEQ Workshop (W3): Mitigation of harmful algal blooms: Novel approaches to a decades long problem affecting theviability of natural and aquaculture fisheries
 MONITOR Workshop (W4): Networking ocean observatories around the North Pacific Ocean
Co-sponsored by Ocean Networks Canada
 POC Workshop (W5): SOLAS into the Future: Designing the next phase of the Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere
Study within the context of the Future Earth Program
Co-sponsored by Surface Ocean Low Atmosphere Study (SOLAS)
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PICES Press Vol. 22, No. 2

3rd International Symposium on “Effects of climate change on the world’s oceans”
Twelve scientific sessions and six workshops will takeplace at the 3rd International Symposium on the “Effects ofclimate change on the world’s oceans”, to be held March
23–27, 2015 in Santos, Brazil. This meeting continues aseries of climate change focused meetings (2008: Gijón,
Spain; 2012: Yeosu, Korea) coordinated by theInternational Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES),
the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES)
and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of
UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO). Deadline for early registration
rates and abstract submission is October 31, 2014.
Details about themeeting are available atwww.pices.int/climatechange2015.aspx. Selected papers(oral and poster) from the symposium will be included in a
special issue of the ICES Journal of Marine Science(www.ices.dk/products/icesjournal.asp) scheduled for
publication in 2016. In addition, it is anticipated that
selected sessions and workshops will develop their own
proposals for special volumes.
Below, two of thesymposium convenors have expressed the importance of
this meeting and why you should attend:

climate change impacts on the oceans is a personal interest.
These impacts have been evident in my own research, fromwarming trends in sea surface temperature time series tochanges in fish community composition. Along the Pacificcoast of Canada, these observed changes have had major
consequences for the coastal communities and stakeholders
that utilize marine ecosystem services: both as lost resources
and as opportunities for new resources. Sustainable
management of marine resources in the face of climatechange requires quantification of uncertainty and risk in
our climate, ocean and ecosystem modeling and forecasts.
This symposium continues to build on the latest
developments and innovations in these fields and bridges tothe human dimensions of climate change impacts, with afocus on coastal communities, management objectives andgovernance adaptation. It will be an integrated forum forphysical, natural and social scientists from around theworld, providing the opportunity to present research on asuite of climate change pressures and system responses
including advection, nutrient transport, ocean acidification,
carbon pumps, phenology, biodiversity, resilience, andevolutionary adaptation. It is a unique opportunity toadvance, discuss and debate the scientific understandingsof climate change effects on marine systems in conjunction
with the forethought to thesocietal implications ofreliance on those systems’
services.

Jacquelynne King (PICES): As a natural scientist thatprovides scientific advice for marine resource management,

Luis Valdés (IOC): Since
its creation, the IOCUNESCO has played apivotal role in the development of oceanography at aninternational level providing
mechanisms to guide andcomplement ongoing researchby nation states. At the IOC
we are convinced thatclimate change is not only achallenging scientific issue
that has developed a corpus
of observations, models andhypothesis on possible consequences affecting criticalprocesses for the functioningof Earth’s ecology, but also
has had a dragging effect inother disciplines that havemodified the approaches toclassical topics such as risk
analyses, socio-economics,
ethics and politics, energy,
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North Pacific Marine Science Organization
observations, results, models and ideas are crucial toconsolidate our understanding and knowledge at a global
scale.

natural resources management, geo-engineering and even
evolution, which are now addressed under a different
perspective. The scientific debate has moved very fast fromobservations to impacts and from impacts to discussion on
potential mechanisms to mitigate and adapt to this new
reality. This was likely in accordance to the fact that there
was, and still is, an urgent need for actions to minimise theimpacts of global warming, and obviously the decisions
must be based on credible scientific knowledge. The debate
on climate change needs input from science as one of theessential elements, and symposia like this, that bring
together experts from different disciplines to exchangeThis 3rd International Symposium on the “Effects of climatechange on the world’s oceans” aims to deliver new insights
into the ways in which climate change and variability isaffecting marine ecosystems, especially in Latin America
and the Southern Hemisphere, reduce the scientificuncertainty behind environmental change and provide asolid basis for future comparisons and research.

Join us in Brazil next March!

PICES Interns
We are pleased to announce that Ms. Anna Skvortsova
joined the Secretariat in July as the 2014 PICES Intern.
Anna was born and raised in Vladivostok in the Russian
Far East. She graduated from the Far East State University
in 2004 and was immediately employed by the Pacific
Scientific Research Fisheries Centre (TINRO-Centre). She
has worked at the International Department and wasengaged in preparation of the PICES Annual Meetings heldin Vladivostok in 2005 and in Khabarovsk in 2011. Anna
was in charge of coordination and implementation ofinternational cooperation based on bilateral agreements
between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Korea,
People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, and People’s
Republic of China. She enjoys travelling, spending sparetime with her close and dear people, attending the
francophone meetings supported by Alliance Francaise andparticipating in meetings of the Young Entrepreneurs
Center. She has a great interest in embroidery, baking anddancing.
We extend our sincere appreciation to Mr. Keyseok Choe,
who completed his term as PICES intern with theSecretariat in June 2014 and who has returned to Korea
where he is now working as Supervisor of the General
Affairs Team at the East Sea Research Institute of the
Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST).
Keyseok was of valuable assistance in day-to-day activities
at the office as well as helping with activities at PICES2013, the FUTURE Open Science Meeting, and the 2014
PICES Summer School. We wish the best for Keyseok in
his career.
PICES Press
Produced and published by the PICES Secretariat
P.O. Box 6000
9860 West Saanich Road
Sidney, British Columbia V8L 4B2, Canada
E-mail: secretariat@pices.int
www.pices.int
Summer 201458