The first Mares Conference on Marine Ecosystems Health and Conservation 2014: key messages and outcomes

• Main Authors: Deprez, Tim, Vincx, Magda, Canario, Adelino V.M., Erzini, Karim, Brownlie, Katherine
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: PeerJ 2015
• Subjects: Levin; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1490; https://peerj.com/preprints/1490.pdf; https://peerj.com/preprints/1490.xml; https://peerj.com/preprints/1490.html

The first Mares Conference on Marine Ecosystems Health and Conservation was a successful event organized by the MARES doctoral programme bringing together over 150 researchers in Olhão, Portugal from November 17 th to 21 st 2014. The conference was opened by Prof. Dr. Hans-Otto Pörtner, whose keynote address focused on a sectoral analysis by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC AR5) on the impacts of climate change on the world’s oceans. The first session on “Future oceans” was opened with a talk by Dr. Frank Melzner highlighting the problems calcifying invertebrates face in the warmer, more acidic and hypoxic waters. Other presenters dealt with changing global diversity patterns, ocean acidification, and the loss the genetic diversity. The second session on “Natural resources” was opened by Dr. Rainer Froese, who focused on whether or not the oceans can feed humanity. This talk introduced other contributions in the session, dealing with fisheries issues and Marine Protected Areas, as well as problems with proper identifications of species used for economic purposes. “Biodiversity effects” was the scope of the third session opened by a talk on oxygenation and marine biodiversity challenges in the 21 st Century by Prof. Lisa Levin. Rapid ocean deoxygenation is a process which is currently less investigated but which has considerable effects on body size, taxonomic composition, habitat heterogeneity, and nutrient cycling. The following presentations focused on other factors having a strong effect on marine biodiversity, ranging from the harvesting of algae to the fragmentation of ecosystems. The fourth session addressed “Biological invasions”. Dr. Gregory Ruiz discussed biological invasions in North American marine ecosystems and the need for constant monitoring, and the use of a dynamic and multi-vector approach. Problems with invasive species in European waters were addressed with examples from the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea. The fifth session on ...