WOBEC

Context

The Weddell Sea in Antarctica plays an important role in global climate regulation and constitutes a potential sanctuary for unique Antarctic species. Therefore, the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is developing a Weddell Sea Marine Protected Area (WSMPA) to ensure the future protection of its biological treasures.

In recent years, there has been increasing evidence of accelerating climate change all around Antarctica, prompting the need for sustained monitoring to assess how ecosystems will change under progressing sea-ice decline, ocean warming, and ocean acidification. Since no systematic ecosystem monitoring exists in the eastern Weddell Sea, scientists of 11 institutes from 8 countries join forces together with stakeholders from business, conservation, and society to design and apply a monitoring framework for a Weddell Sea Observatory of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Change (WOBEC).

Main objectives

WOBEC aims to establish the “DNA” for a systematic ecosystem monitoring framework in the Eastern Weddell Sea, and a baseline of the current state of the ecosystem against which change can be measured, by achieving the following objectives:

1. Making the baseline biodiversity and ecosystem knowledge of the Eastern Weddell Sea globally accessible to the public;
2. Engaging stakeholders in a participatory process to develop a scientific monitoring framework with potential application in the WSMPA process;
3. Crafting and implementing an innovative multiscale monitoring strategy that integrates traditional methods with cutting-edge technology.

Main activities

WOBEC builds on a comprehensive co-design process with stakeholders to develop a monitoring framework that takes into account the latest state of scientific knowledge and societal demands, and which will unfold in a series of stakeholder-science workshops.

To provide the necessary knowledge base, we will inventory historic, recent, and new ecosystem data and make them available through publicly accessible data portals, e.g. OBIS and EMODnet. Furthermore, we will assess and apply available technologies for their suitability for long- term monitoring across spatial and temporal scales, including autonomous observatories, Earth Observation and traditional ship-bases methods. Finally, we will analyse ecological data to generate scientific products such as statistical models and maps, facilitating an iterative process to inform and refine the co-design process of the WOBEC monitoring framework.

WOBEC will yield publicly available scientific data from the past 5 decades to the present, a socially relevant monitoring framework for future continuation, including a data management plan and standard operating procedures for the sampling of Essential Variables (EVs).

The results will be presented in scientific publications and outreach products, including fact sheets, a website, and various media formats. WOBEC will be developed in close collaboration with CCAMLR, other industry and conservation stakeholders, and other monitoring initiatives in the Southern Ocean and beyond, ensuring a wide dissemination of results to stakeholders and policy makers