"Vulnerability and Responses of Marine Populations, Communities and Ecosystems to Climate Change and Ocean Acidification"

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Climate change (CC) and ocean acidification (OA) are considered some of the major potential drivers of changes in marine ecosystems, affecting human wellbeing through changes in ecosystem services such as fisheries. To develop effective marine conservation and management policies under CC and OA, there is an urgent need to identify ecosystems and their components that are most vulnerable to such impacts, and develop scientifically robust scenarios of future changes. Recently, there have been major advances in establishing fundamental theories to explain biological responses to CC and OA, and development of modelling tools to simulate these biological responses. However, so far, these efforts focus on CC and OA effects at the organismal and population levels, while there is a large gap in our understanding of biological responses at community and ecosystem levels. This leads to two lines of research questions: (1) What are the major characteristics of different species that render them having different vulnerabilities to CC and OA? Can we use fundamental biological theories to predict their vulnerabilities? If so, what are the vulnerabilities of marine fishes and invertebrates in the Northeast Pacific region? (2) What are the linkages between biological responses to CC and OA at population, community and ecosystem levels? What are the expected changes in marine ecosystems and patterns of biodiversity under scenarios of CC and OA? What are the levels of uncertainties associated with scenarios developed from CC and OA impact assessment model for marine ecosystems?The program will develop and apply an innovative assessment framework for vulnerability of marine fishes and invertebrates to CC and OA. Moreover, using a range of modelling approaches, the program will examine hypotheses of underlying mechanisms determining biological responses of marine communities to CC and OA. The outcomes will contribute to developing effective ecosystem-based management to mitigate and adapt to CC and OA impacts.