ICES COOPERATIVE RESEARCH REPORT RAPPORT DES RECHERCHES COLLECTIVES NO. 240 Report on the Young Scientists Conference on Marine Ecosystem Perspectives Gilleleje, Denmark 20–24 November 1999 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea Conseil International pour l’Exploration de la Mer Palægade 2–4 DK-1261 Copenhagen K Denmark August 2000 ISSN 2707-7144 ISBN 978-87-7482-427-5 For purposes of citation, the report should be cited as follows: ICES. 2000. Report on the Young Scientists Conference on Marine Ecosystem Perspectives. ICES Cooperative Research Report, No. 240. 73 pp. https://doi.org/10.17895/ices.pub.5373 For permission to reproduce material from ICES Cooperative Research Report No. 240, please apply to the General Secretary. ii ICES Coop.Res.Rep. No. 240 ICES Coop.Res.Rep. No. 240 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Section Page REPORT ON THE YOUNG SCIENTISTS CONFERENCE ON MARINE ECOSYSTEM PERSPECTIVES ...............1 Introduction.........................................................................................................................................................................1 Proceedings .........................................................................................................................................................................1 VIEW FROM THE CHAIR – PETER GRØNKJÆR.........................................................................................................2 Workshop 1 – Human Influence on Marine Ecosystems ....................................................................................................4 Workshops 2 and 3 – Top-Down or Bottom-Up Control in Marine Processes and Influence of Hydrographic Processes on Energy Transfer in the Planktonic Ecosystem ...........................................30 Poster Presentation............................................................................................................................................................51 Workshop 4 – Modelling Ecological Processes................................................................................................................56 @# i Report on the Young Scientists Conference on Marine Ecosystem Perspectives Chair: Peter Grønkjær Co-Chairs: Fredrik Arrhenius, Anna Ingvarsdóttir, and Stefan Neuenfeldt Introduction This report contains the proceedings and abstracts of papers and posters presented at the Young Scientists Conference on Marine Ecosystem Perspectives held in Gilleleje, Denmark 20–24 November 1999. Sponsors The Conference was organised by The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea in cooperation with The Danish Academy of Technical Sciences and The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. It was sponsored by The Danish Ministry of Education, The Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fishery, The Danish Research Council, Knud Højgaards Foundation, and the European Commission DG XII. Objective The objective of the Conference was to provide an international forum where young marine scientists from many countries could meet at an early stage of their career to experience international scientific cooperation and to establish networks. At the same time it gave them an opportunity to contribute to the international scientific work that forms the basis for managing the marine environment. Theme The Conference theme focused on marine ecosystem interactions. The following four topics were considered; • Human influence on marine ecosystems. • Top-down or bottom-up control in marine processes. • Influence of hydrographic processes on energy transfer in the planktonic ecosystem. • Modelling ecological processes. Proceedings The Conference opened with a lecture on the role of ICES and the state of the marine ecosystem research, followed by keynote lectures on each of the four workshop themes, delivered by invited senior scientists. Six senior scientists were present throughout the Conference. The Conference and the workshops were chaired by young scientists. Presentations of papers and posters, followed by discussions, took place in three parallel running workshops covering the four topics. (Topic 2 and 3 were combined in one workshop). Reports from the workshops were presented and discussed in plenum on the last day of the Conference. Participants were requested to fill in a questionnaire for evaluation of the Conference. Recommendations on follow-up activities including publication were prepared. A number of social events were arranged to facilitate a broad spectrum of communication between the participants. Participants A list of participants, invited speakers, and members of the Conference Steering Group is given in Appendix 1. 93 young scientists participated in the Conference. (See Appendix 1). Except for a few, they were all between 25 and 35 years. The following countries were represented (numbers of participants in brackets): Australia (1), Belgium (2), Canada (6), Denmark (4), Estonia (4), Finland (2), France (4), Germany (10), Greece (2), Iceland (2) Iran (1), Ireland (1), Italy (3), Israel (1), Latvia (4), Lithuania (4), Netherlands (1), Norway (6), Pakistan (1), Poland (5), Portugal (3) Russia (4), Spain (3), Sweden (2), UK, Scotland (2), UK (6), USA (7). Recommendations At the final plenary session it was recommended that ICES should maintain a web-site and e-mail address lists in order to facilitate communication within the networks which had been established at the Conference and to extend these networks. ICES Coop.Res.Rep. No. 240 1 It was also recommended that ICES should be requested to continue to organise activities for young scientists and consider funding of such activities e.g., in cooperation with other national or international organisations in order to allow non-ICES Member Countries to participate. This was strongly supported by the participants in an evaluation carried out on the last day of the Conference. It was recommended to have the proceedings of the Conference and extended abstracts published in the ICES Cooperative Research Report Series, and have selected papers or groups of papers presented for publication to the ICES Journal of Marine Science and to other peer reviewed journals like the Journal of Plankton Ecology and the Journal of Ecological Modelling. View from the Chair – Peter Grønkjær Five years ago Mr Edgar M. Thomasson, then ICES librarian, suggested a Conference for young scientists as a joint venture between ICES and the Danish Institute for Fisheries and Marine Research. Ed's argument was: "There must be many young scientists loaded with good ideas who have not yet joined the international scientific community. Let us get a hold of them and bring new talent and energy into the ICES system. Let us give young scientists a chance to experience international scientific co-operation at an early stage in their careers and to begin to establish their own research networks". Now, five years and a very successful ICES Young Scientists Conference on Marine Perspectives later, everyone involved in the ICES YSC agrees that Ed's original idea was excellent and the proposed objectives for the Conference a good framework for the organisers. On 20 November 1999, ninety-three young scientists from 26 countries representing all of the five continents, 12 chairs & invited speakers, and a three-person secretariat arrived in the small fishing village of Gilleleje, Denmark. Here, one hour north of Copenhagen, Gilleleje Konference and Feriecenter provided the perfect setting for the four day jam- packed scientific and social programme. This ICES Cooperative Research Report contains the abstracts of the papers and posters presented by the participants. The scientific programme was made up of four parallel workshop sessions and two plenary sessions. The workshops, each chaired jointly by a young and an "old" scientist, were structured around groups of two to four papers within a given subject area. These papers then acted as starting points for half to full hour discussions pertaining to the subject. In workshop 1 on "Human influence on marine ecosystems" one of the main topics was how to assess the human impact and how to determine the level of ecosystem change that we are willing to accept as a consequence of human activity. The latter was a major point of discussion throughout the whole workshop, whereas assessment of human impact was the objective of a range of papers on combined biological, chemical and physical studies, sediment profile images, stable isotopes and impact modelling. A one-day session was dedicated to the effects of fishing on the ecosystems Workshops 2 and 3 were combined into one session. Although "Bottom-Up" has been put forward as the prime mechanism controlling the energy flow and recruitment in marine ecosystems, the papers presented show that not all participants share this view. The papers on grazing, predation, prey quality, and tropho-dynamics advocate the prominent role of "Top-Down" control in a wide range of primarily coastal ecosystems. Another recurring theme was the discussion on how far "Up" or "Down" the effects of e.g., nutrient loading or fishery could be felt; an important question that is still open. This discussion was influenced by the presentations relating to the role of hydrographic processes on energy transfer, where it was concluded that these processes have an important impact on the distribution of phyto- & zooplankton, and early life stages of a range of marine species. Consequently these processes will influence the relative strength of "Top-Down" and "Bottom-Up"