MASTS ASM 2018

The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS) represents the marine science community in Scotland.

MASTS will hold its eighth Annual Science Meeting at the Technology & Innovation Centre, Glasgow, from 31 October to 2 November. The 2018 ASM will examine the modern challenges that face our marine waters, and identify ways and means to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

Session – The changing Arctic Ocean: Identifying and quantifying the Arctic response to climate change

14.00 – 16.00, Thursday 1 Nov, Conference Rooms 6/7

Chaired by Ina Lefering and James Grecian for Robyn Tuerena

• James Grecian (St Andrews, ARISE)
  Commuting to the Arctic Restaurant: analysis of Harp seal movement data using hidden state models
• Antonia Doncila (Edinburgh, ARISE)
  Nutrient cycling in the Central Arctic Ocean: insights from stable isotopes of nitrate
• Mike Heath (Strathclyde, DIAPOD and MiMeMo)
  Modelling the effects of changes in sea-ice extent on Arctic marine food webs
• Laura Hobbs (SAMS, Arctic PRIZE)
  Small changes in winter prey availability cause Calanoid copepods to adopt a variety of over-wintering strategies in the high Arctic
• Anni Makela (Aberdeen)
  Responses and resilience of Arctic benthic communities to climate change mediated alterations in food supply
• Robert Wilson (Strathclyde, DIAPOD)
  Do uncertainties in satellite chlorophyll data matter when modelling the geographic distribution of Arctic zooplankton?
• Sarah Reed (SAMS, DIAPOD)
  Investigating respiration rates and lipid sac composition in Calanus copepods to develop understanding of the changing Arctic Ocean
• David McKee (Strathclyde, Arctic PRIZE)
  Zooplankton super-swarms detected from space

e-Poster Session 4

• Kirsty Crocket (Edinburgh, Science Coordinator)
  NERC Changing Arctic Ocean: Implications for marine biology and biogeochemistry

Session description

The Arctic is the fastest changing environment on the planet, supporting diverse albeit poorly understood ecosystems. Changes in the ocean and sea-ice environment of the Arctic will generate major but, as yet, unknown responses in Arctic ecosystems. These are affecting biological processes at every level of organisation – from genetics and physiology to food webs, biogeochemical cycles, species distribution and whole ecosystems. The Arctic is also intrinsically tied to global processes, whether they are climatic, environmental or socio-economic. Consequently, the Arctic is responding in unknown ways to profound changes in the physical environment as well as to multiple natural and anthropogenic events that place stress on Arctic ecosystems.

This session solicits submissions highlighting new findings about the response to climate-driven changes of the large-scale ecosystem structure and biogeochemical functioning of the Arctic Ocean. We invite contributions for presentations of 12 minutes duration that focus on the impacts of retreating and thinning sea ice, open water areas of larger and longer duration, riverine runoff and associated nutrient and pollutant loads, changes in Arctic Ocean circulation, and alteration of gas exchange across the atmosphere/surface ocean boundary. Abstracts spanning topics ranging from observational data and modelling outputs on primary productivity, species distributions, biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem services and food webs are strongly encouraged.

Presenters are requested to ensure that their talks do not solely focus on past and current research but speculate on future directions of research lead by the UK. Talks will need to be accessible to other disciplines, by avoiding jargon and keeping technical details simple.