Publication Abstract

Report of the ICES Study Group on Biodiversity Science (2008)

M. Schratzberger*, W. Appeltans, J.A. Cooper, S. Degraer, S. Pesant, H. Reiss, J. Roff, J. Vanaverbeke, S. Widdicombe

The components of biodiversity are still consistently undervalued in both private and public decisions. There is an urgent need to bridge the gap between science and policy to take action. Because the components of biodiversity span across the levels of biological organisation (genes, species, communities, ecosystems) there is no single, universal, indicator of biodiversity. As a major international organisation, with responsibility for the protection of the marine environment and assessment of human impacts, ICES needs to be able to rationalise its activities in terms of its contribution to understanding and conserving the components of marine biodiversity.In order to increase ICES capacity to understand and provide advice on the effects of natural and human induced environmental change on marine biodiversity components, SGBioDiv has:

• identified ways in which ICES can capitalise on partnerships with European and international initiatives addressing marine biodiversity components,
• evaluated the current contributions of ICES expert groups to understand and provide advice on the components of marine biodiversity, and
• prepared an inventory of the current and future ICES science needs related to the components of biodiversity.

Our approach to addressing these tasks was two-fold: We determined what portions of the different ICES Study and Working Groups are addressing biodiversity issues and analysed how ICES expert groups fit in the over-arching theme of marine biodiversity. Our general recommendation is that ICES expert groups should be organised within a single framework based on the components of marine biodiversity. Specific recommendations address:

• fundamental shift in ICES’ perspective on biodiversity components, i.e. from being a cross-cutting to an over-arching theme and
• the need for ICES to capitalise on existing scientific advisory networks, research and information management initiatives and funding agencies in order to benefit from and be of benefit to the European and international scientific community.

Reference

M. Schratzberger*, W. Appeltans, J.A. Cooper, S. Degraer, S. Pesant, H. Reiss, J. Roff, J. Vanaverbeke, S. Widdicombe  (2008) Report of the ICES Study Group on Biodiversity Science. ICES CM 2008/MHC:06, 71 pp, http://www.ices.dk/workinggroups/ViewWorkingGroup.aspx?ID=190