Preface:
The primary purpose of this document is to report the recommendations resulting from the ICES workshop on the “Significance of Changing Ocean CO2 and pH in ICES Shelf Sea Ecosystems” held 2-4th May, in London. There are some excellent reports already published in this field firstly by SCOR and then by NOAA/NSF/USGS, the Royal Society, WGBU and more recently by OSPAR and the IPCC. Cognisant of these recent efforts, this ICES workshop set out with a slightly different aim to investigate the links between potential changes in pH and its effects on marine ecosystem components such as plankton, fish and shellfish and cold water corals. To this end this workshop covered ground already considered by others to give it a sound base for the predictions of likely impacts, this report will outline those relevant issues but the reader is advised to refer to other reports, if greater depth is required. The novel focus of this report is the potential effects on ecosystem function with links to fisheries. This report makes recommendations for work associated with understanding this problem to the entire ecosystem and specifically for the understanding of this problem to fisheries. Most of the material used was presented at the workshop, appendix I being the most significant exception.
Fernand L., Brewer P. G., Pörtner H. O., Gazeau F., Gattuso J.-P., Marubini F., Kildow J., Barry J., Kröger S., Dulvy N. K., Laing I., Blackford J., Widdicombe S., Hardman Mountford N., Bellerby R., Studd S., Suggett D. & Borsheim K., 2007. Report of the Workshop on the Significance of Changing Ocean CO2 and pH in Shelf Sea Ecosystems, 31 p. London: DEFRA and ICES-CIEM. Web site and report.
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