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Effects of Global Change on Marine Ecosystems
Project outline:
„Protected species and habitats in the German Baltic Sea and in the North Sea and their sensitivities against anthropogenic impacts and climate change”
Aims and content of this project
Within this project a comprising reference book on protected species (fish, marine mammals, benthic invertebrates) and habitats of the German Baltic Sea and the North Sea will be developed. The aim is to provide specialized knowledge on species and habitats that is required to support decision making processes on assessing impacts and future management actions in the German conservation areas of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). With this work the marine nature conservancy will be supported on national as well as on international level.
The book will contain a “profile” for each protected species and habitat that will summarize fundamental information on its biology, ecology and distribution. A lot of this information is already published, but must be researched in this context and compiled. On the basis of these profiles, sensitivities of species and habitats against existing anthropogenic impacts in the sea (e.g. fisheries, offshore-installations, exploration and degradation of raw materials) will be worked out. Further, the effects of climate change will be assessed on the special environmental requirements of species and habitats on the one hand, and on expected future changes in environmental conditions, e.g. temperature, salinity and currents, on the other hand.
The book will be published in the BfN-series „Naturschutz und Biologische Vielfalt“ in German and English at the end of the year 2010 and at the beginning of 2011, respectively. The structure of this publication will be comparable to that of the complementary publication „Profiles of seabirds and waterbirds of the German North and Baltic Seas“, (Mendel et al. 2008).
| Photo: Martin Wahl | Photo: Martin Wahl | Photo: Bernd Ueberschär |
Project organization
Thematically this project is subdivided into three parts, which were taken over from the following experts and their working groups:
- Dr. Rainer Froese, GEOMAR: Subproject fish http://filaman.uni-kiel.de/ifm-geomar/rfroese
- PD Dr. Ursula Siebert, Research and Technology Center Westcoast Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel: Subproject marine mammals
- Prof. Dr. Martin Wahl, GEOMAR: Subprojects habitats and benthic invertebrates http://www.ifm-geomar.de/~mwahl
The Kiel Earth Institute coordinates this project.
Support and duration of the project
This project is funded by the Federal Agency of Nature Conservation (BfN: www.habitatmare.de) as part of the Initiative for the Climate Protection of the Federal Environment Ministry (BMU). The project started in October 2008 and will end in December 2010.
Contact:Ulrike Bernitt |