9530213 Rothschild This is a proposal to hold a workshop to develop a consortium for implementing the Small Pelagic Fish and Climate Change (SPACC) scientific activities. The workshop will identify the functions of the consortium by: developing a consensus on the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) SPACC core program, by preparing a strategic plan for GLOBEC/ SPACC and identifying specific action items that are required to achieve the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) mission relevant to GLOBEC/SPACC, by developing a strategy for achieving new levels of support for GLOBEC/SPACC research, and by determining how the proposed consortium would contribute to these goals. The objective of the Inter-American SPACC is to identify linkages between the physical forces that control population growth of small pelagic fish populations and to achieve this through comparative studies. The long range goal is to forecast how changes in pattern and intensity of these forces, related to elevated greenhouse gases and changes in the air-sea engine, alter the productivity of small pelagic fish populations. Major changes in small pelagic fish abundance may be accompanied by marked changes in ecosystems structure. Examination of zooplankton data indicate that the great collapse of the Peruvian anchovy in 1972 may have been more strongly related to a long term decline in zooplankton stocks than to El Ni o and fishing. Similarly, the decline in North Sea herring stock appear to be linked with declines of two standard deviations in phytoplankton and zooplankton. In sum, present evidence indicated that long term trends in productivity of small pelagic fish are climate driven and may be mediated through zooplankton. What is not known is how these processes are linked nor how to predict the effect of long term changes in ocean climate. An IAI SPACC could do much to coordinate the often separated research on these topics in the Americas through a Phase II proposal which will address mech anisms responsible for large-scale fluctuations in small pelagic fish over time scales of 10-100 years. Although focused on the fish (sardines, anchovies) over fairly long time scales, the mechanisms responsible for these fluctuations act throughout the ecosystems within which the fish live and are thought to act fairly rapidly. %%% This is a proposal to hold a workshop to develop a consortium for implementing the Small Pelagic Fish and Climate Change (SPACC) scientific activities. The workshop will identify the functions of the consortium by: developing a consensus on the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) SPACC core program, by preparing a strategic plan for GLOBEC/ SPACC, by identifying specific action items that are required to achieve the IAI mission relevant to GLOBEC/SPACC, by developing a strategy for achieving new levels of support for GLOBEC/SPACC research, and by determining how the proposed consortium would contribute to these goals. The objective of the Inter-American SPACC is to identify linkages between the physical forces that control population growth of small pelagic fish populations and to achieve this through comparative studies. The long range goal is to forecast how changes in pattern and intensity of these forces, related to elevated greenhouse gases and changes in the air-sea engine, alter the productivity of small pelagic fish populations. GLOBEC/SPACC has an Afro-European component that focuses on small pelagic populations of Europe and Africa and this proposed Inter-American component. An implementation planning meeting for Euro-African SPACC was held in late 1995. This workshop is for a similar meeting for the Inter-American SPACC. Inter-American and Afro-European SPACC, as members of international GLOBEC, share common themes: identifying linkages between physical forces and biological processes; an emphasis on modeling to interpret multi-disciplinary observations; and a focus on zooplankton as a key link between physics and fish productivity. The fo rmation of an Inter-American GLOBEC/SPACC consortium would be a significant contribution in coordinating activities in the Americas. The goal of the workshop in Phase I is to finish the design of the measurement and modeling systems which were begun during two previous SPACC meetings and coordinate the activities of SPACC researchers in the Americas. The approach is to develop a hierarchy of measurement strategies and models that could be implemented by all countries. The unique contribution of Inter-American and Afro-European SPACC is that they will use comparisons of ecosystems dominated by small pelagic fish to infer cause and effect linkages between fish, zooplankton and ocean physics, and thus addresses the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) Science Agenda theme of "Comparative Studies of Oceanic, Coastal and Estuarine Processes." The following countries are participating in this proposal: Argentina; Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and the United States. These countries are Members States of the IAI, a U.S. initiative to stimulate cooperative research on global change issues among the scientific institutions of the Americas. The U.S. National Science Foundation is the U.S. Government agency designated to carry out U.S. responsibilities within the IAI. ***
