Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services under Climate Change

The project is led by the Netherlands Institute of Sea Research (NIOZ) and has 19 partners from institutes spread over the five European Seas (Mediterranean, North Sea, North Atlantic, Baltic and Arctic). Each institute provides data from one or more study sites and contributes interdisciplinary expertise within marine biodiversity. The participants are selected such that their areas of expertise together cover all aspects of marine biodiversity, from genes to Ecosystems. The project is divided into 8 work packages (WPs). The MarBESC project begins with three main hypotheses (WP2; see Fig. 1). 1) Biodiversity is increasing along a south-north gradient and we can use the observed changes to predict future scenarios, 2) Europe's water bodies and their biodiversity are becoming more similar and 3) organisms are becoming smaller and more shorter-lived, causing a longer food chain and thus major changes to harvestable populations such as fish. The innovation of MarBESC lies in testing these somewhat startling hypotheses with comparable data from a range of case-studies representing the 5 European Seas (Mediterranean, Atlantic, North Sea, Baltic and Arctic). The project thus aims to provide insight into how European ecosystems currently function (WP3) and how climate change is changing them and the services that they provide (WPs 4 & 5). The resulting knowledge base (WP6) will publicise information to be fed directly into national and international policies (WP7) and ultimately to contribute to environmental management and decision-making (WP8). Application of emerging remedial measures to prevent decline in ecosystem services will directly address the EU programme's focal area of building a low-carbon, climate-resilient future.