Retrospective

Hosted by Jorge Moreno

The oceans are a vast resource, providing food, raw materials (extractive activities), as well as supporting tourism activities all over the world (non-extractive). As such, it is fundamental to protect and conserve this system and its inhabitants. Adequate management and enforcement are necessary for conservation, but they can only be accomplished through science. Therefore, it is our best tool for marine conservation. If your research is contributing to the conservation of the marine environment, we invite you to submit an abstract for this section and share your experience with the rest of early career ocean professionals and conservationists!

Hosted by Maria Wilke

As the Arctic ice is melting, coastal communities of the North face some of the most uncertain futures, battling increasing maritime activities, economies dependent on limited resources, depopulation, non-representation and consequences of rapid climate. To adapt to such conditions, transformative approaches to governance need to be applied. This session will explore governance issues and transformative approaches to enable shared understanding across the Arctic and beyond. We invite you to submit your abstract on research relating to governance issues and solutions in coastal communities in the North. Submissions are accepted from all scientific fields with special focus on interdisciplinary work.

Hosted by Amaia Bilbao Kareaga, Hugo Campillo Gancedo & Marta Moriano Ortiz

The proper control of the exploited marine resources is essential for the adequate management either from an environmental or human health point of view. Different approaches can be applied to reach an appropriate transparency regarding the product that is being consumed, such as the identity of the species, its origin or the possible contaminant content. For this, different techniques might be used: genetic tools, pollutants analysis, etc. Avoiding commercial fraud and raising awareness about possible health hazards and the troubling management of some species (especially those of conservation interest) are factors that may be of special importance in the future.

Hosted by Constanze Hammerl

Monitoring is a key aspect of managing marine environments. It has enabled the development of a science-based understanding of marine ecosystems and human impacts affecting it. In the context of increasing construction at sea, the establishment of no-take zones and the associated inappropriateness of many traditional methods, as well as the general societal quest for more efficient and sustainable technologies, the following question arises: How can future monitoring be designed? This session is for anyone investigating more sustainable methods of marine monitoring, whether you are working on new monitoring devices, sampling strategies and concepts or more efficient data processing.

Hosted by Magie Aiken

Bioarchaeological investigation of marine species adds to our understanding of human exploitation and its impact on marine ecosystems. This directly ties into modern ecological studies by contextualizing current research within a long-term approach not otherwise feasible. We invite researchers who use bioarchaeological methods to study any aspect of marine systems to share their research. This session invites contributions from a broad range of bioarchaeological methods, research questions, time periods, and target species to share their perspective on the past, present, and future of marine systems.

Hosted by Darya Chernikhova

Marine samples archiving (biobanking) is a growing field. Repositories offer hedges against rapid biodiversity declines and sources of reference samples for research. They also pose new and accelerating problems to be explored. Are you interested in cryopreservation or -omics databases? Do you work with bioactives and biomaterials? Do you study equitable access or organize citizen/community science efforts? Join our interdisciplinary conversation on coalition building, citizen science, information accessibility, and technical methodologies, as applied to wide-scale distributed biobanking efforts. This session aims to bring together participants with diverse backgrounds and interests, to share complementary views on the future of archival collections.

The use of Environmental DNA (eDNA) is increasingly applied within molecular biology for the detection of species based on DNA-traces left behind in the environment. In this session, we want to explore the technical advancements made, and hear all about the hands-on applications of the concept.

Subsession 1: Aquatic Biodiversity and Stock Assessment: Genetics and Computational Methods

Hosted by Yassine Kasmi

Technological progress in high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics has raised questions about the necessity of continuing with invasive methods for biodiversity and single species stock assessments in aquatic habitats. This subchapter aims to highlight applied molecular and computational biology methods as well as bio-modelling to solve these questions.

Subsession 2: eDNA approaches to ecological questions

Hosted by Paulina Urban, Lara Jansen & Anna Joelle Greife

The concept of eDNA can be applied to activities within ecosystem surveillance, monitoring or conservation. This subchapter focuses on WHERE, WHEN and WHY eDNA is used, including, but not limited to fields like fisheries management, population dynamics, modelling, invasive species detection, studies on aDNA, nsDNA or iDNA and more!

Hosted by Christian Simeoni & Fabiola Espinoza

Marine coastal ecosystems play a central role in maintaining healthy marine regions. However, cumulative impacts arising from multiple pressures are threatening their ecological conditions and the services they provide, decreasing their ability to response to impacts such as climate change. Therefore, unravelling the climate change-biodiversity-ecosystem services nexus, paying attention to both environmental and socio-economic dimensions is a priority for researchers. This session invites presentations on methods and applications from various field of studies, exploring how integrated frameworks and models can expand our current knowledge on this nexus, and, guide ecosystem-based practices to both address and adapt to climate change.

Hosted by Selma Mezger & Johanna Berlinghof

(Sub-)tropical coastal waters are among the most diverse and productive ecosystems, providing various ecosystem services and sustaining human well-being. However, coastal ecosystems, like coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and mangrove forests are impacted by local and global environmental stressors (e.g., climate change, eutrophication, overfishing). Understanding their ecological and biogeochemical responses to environmental changes is key and can ultimately help to inform managers, policymakers, and stakeholders as a step towards better conservation and restoration. We welcome presentations on all kinds of (sub-) tropical coastal ecosystems to discuss and learn about the impacts of changing environments.

Hosted by Magda Cardozo & Anabel von Jackowski

Global climate change, increasing temperatures and pollution affect the health of the oceans with distinct effects on marine systems on multiple scales. Tracking the ecological and physicochemical impacts of environmental change might be monitored better if we coordinate global observing systems more cohesively. This includes better coordination, standard practices and harmonised outputs across observatories. Long-term studies are key to detect comprehensive indicators and generate valuable assessments. In this session we aim to bring together transdisciplinary research working on bioindicators of the Global Ocean’s health and on coordinated efforts. We invite researchers from multiple disciplines and all career stages, but early career researchers are especially encouraged.

Hosted by Antonia Uthoff, Linda Rehder & Jasmin Stimpfle

Marine primary producers play a fundamental role within oceanic ecosystems. Not only do they form the base of marine energy flux and provide half the atmosphere’s oxygen, they furthermore contribute significantly to major biogeochemical cycles and thus carbon export. Due to global change, they are partially facing drastic alterations of their habitat in terms of temperature, nutrient availability, pH and salinity. Especially in extreme environments such as polar regions, the tropics, intertidal systems, and estuaries, primary producers could be pushed beyond their limits. We encourage all scientists working on marine primary producers – from algae to seagrass – to join our session.

Hosted by Annabell Klinke & Svea Vollstedt

Species are on the move because of human-mediated climate change, shifting their distribution (generally) poleward at regional to global scales. This, in turn, alters ecosystem structures, functions, and services with consequences for human well-being. Species redistribution dramatically affects fisheries and socioecological systems worldwide, yet leaving some more vulnerable than others (i.e., Small Island Developing States). Therefore, we invite presenters from natural and social sciences to advance our knowledge on the challenges generated by climate-driven species redistribution. We welcome abstract submissions from studies filling knowledge gaps related to climate change effects on marine species, communities, ecosystems, or socioecological systems.

Hosted by Erik Sulanke

Climate change is undoubtedly the greatest challenge humanity is facing in modern times. It will alter the world’s oceans’ chemistry, physics, and biology, which will have cascading effects on all marine ecosystems. Millions of humans worldwide depend on the services those ecosystems provide, be it in the form of food, oxygen, protection, or employment. We call for dedicated young marine scientists who use state-of-the-art approaches to explore, predict, and model the effects climate change will or might have on the marine ecosystem with special respect to human use forms and socio-ecological interactions.

Hosted by Sonja Ehlers & Mánus Cunningham

Recently, novel microplastic sources such as ship paint contamination have been identified. These polymer-based paints have been recorded in the relatively pristine environment of Antarctica, from the surface waters of the Weddell Sea to the depths of the South Sandwich Trench, and in rocky intertidal gastropods from the North Sea, Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, novel plastic pollution types (‘plasticrusts’, ‘pyroplastics’ and ‘plastiglomerates’) which were recently identified may become part of the future sedimentary record. We welcome you to submit an abstract on novel plastic sources and types and join us at ICYMARE Bremerhaven 2022.

Hosted by Kara Engelhardt & Jana Vetter

Oceans harbour a variety of ecosystems inhabited by a wide range of organisms. From competition, over predator-prey to symbiotic relationships, they interact and communicate in multiple ways, forming a complex interaction network. Interactions can occur via direct contact or mediated by the surrounding water. Understanding these relationships and their underlying processes is crucial for conservation efforts. This session wants to bring together lines of research that investigate relationships of organisms on the holobiont, species, or ecosystem level. We look forward to all research that deals with interactions between marine organisms and studies which investigate changes in interactions through anthropogenic stressors.

Hosted by Ronen Liberman & Jessica Bellworthy

Coral reefs are the most biodiverse and economically important marine ecosystems worldwide. However, due to anthropogenic pressures, present day reefs are undergoing immense changes in species’ abundance and community composition, which are likely to influence future coral generations, the myriad of organisms they support, and the services these ecosystems provide. This session aims to bring together researchers working to elucidate the past, present, and future dynamics and ecology of coral reef regions around the world. We are seeking to incorporate a wide range of techniques at every organizational level from molecular to ecosystem functioning.

Hosted by Celina Burkholz & Philipp-Konrad Schaetzle

Marine macrophytes are hosts to individual microbial communities on their leaves, roots, and other compartments of the plant. The relationship between host and microbes is complex, and the host‘s fitness and performance can either benefit or suffer from this relationship. Additionally, the microbial community can greatly vary with changing environmental conditions and other surrounding factors, which in turn has varying impacts on the host. This session invites scientists to present their findings on the relationship between marine macrophytes and microbial communities and the resulting effects on the host organism and microbiome.

Hosted by Nina Krebs

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survive. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” (Charles Darwin). Today, the climate is changing fast and all organisms have to adapt to increasing temperature, acidic enriched oceans and lower oxygen level otherwise they will get extinct. What are the strategies and mechanisms of marine animals to cope with climate change? The session will examine this question from the perspective of ecological and physiological mechanisms of marine organisms facing elevated temperature, hypercapnia and/or hypoxia.

Hosted by Florian Stahl & Lea Kappas

Marine forests characterized by large brown macroalgae, also known as kelp forests, are known for their role as ecosystem engineers. They provide habitat and shelter, food, and protect the coastlines by slowing down waves and currents. Furthermore, kelp forest ecosystems are socio-economically important as they provide jobs and income in many parts of the world. In recent years, kelps have gained more attention as a source of blue carbon. This session welcomes all studies related to kelps and other macroalgae – be it their ecology, physiology, the ecosystem services they provide, or their utilization and restoration efforts

Hosted by Fedor Lishchenko & Andrew Balashov

Tropical coastal ecosystems are an iconic example of rich and complex but vulnerable marine habitat. Complexity and delicacy of linkages between coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangrove forests left the whole system exposed to modern threats, such as global warming, introduction of invasive species, overexploitation and pollution. There is an urgent need to develop old and implement new approaches to research of tropical coastal ecosystems, to support its conservation and rational exploitation. Do You have suggestions on how to fulfil this goal? Then join us and share your vision!

Hosted by Ellen Oldenburg

Communities of various trophic levels are central elements of marine ecosystems. Strongly influenced by the environment, they exhibit pronounced regional and temporal variability. A profound understanding of their dynamics is essential to predict the fate of future marine habitats and to provide a wider range of future scenarios for marine ecosystem functionality and services. Current descriptive analyses alone are insufficient to understand microbiome composition and interactions. For this session, we invite contributions employing statistical, computational, and mathematical approaches to analyse complex dynamic environmental data, aiming at increasing our understanding of complex marine ecosystems and predicting the expected effects of, e.g. global climate change.

Hosted by Hannah Niehaus & Linda Thielke

Sea ice is a very fascinating, but also complex component of the polar climate system. There are numerous linkages between the physical processes of the ice and the other components of the polar climate system. Ice dynamics as well as heat exchange and light transmittance influence the atmosphere, ocean and ecology depending on the season. With a combination of observations, satellite measurements and modelling we can gain a better understanding of the processes related to sea ice in polar regions. This is important especially in a warming climate as the polar climate also influences other parts of the Earth.

Hosted by Emelie Breunig & Luciana Villa Castrillón

People of all ages and cultures dream about living within sight of the ocean. Globally, between 50-60% of the world’s population live at the coastlines, and relevant infrastructure is positioned there. However, in the last century, the rising sea level led to unprecedented changes. With more frequent extreme weather events such as storm surges, societies at the coast are one of the most vulnerable groups in a changing climate. Is it still possible to stop sea-level rise? To answer that, we invite you to participate in our session and investigate with us the mechanisms of sea-level rise.

Hosted by Nicolas Dettling & Simon Felix Reifenberg

Eddies and internal waves are prominent dynamic features transferring energy from the large-scale ocean circulation to small scales, where they can drive intense mixing. They thereby shape the local dynamics and stratification, as well as the transport of passive tracers like nutrients or pollutants. Many questions still remain about the generation, distribution and impact of ocean mixing, requiring innovative approaches from many marine science disciplines. We therefore invite contributions from all researchers interested in describing, observing or modelling small-scale oceanic motions that lead to ocean mixing, and its impacts

Hosted by Finn Heukamp & Zerlina Hofmann

In our changing climate, polar regions are particularly affected. Sea ice cover in the Arctic is rapidly declining, oceanic heat transport is changing and the Arctic Ocean is becoming subject to novel environmental conditions. A thorough understanding of the large-scale circulation, associated (sub)mesoscale processes such as eddies, fronts or filaments in the ocean, and their impact on heat transport, ice melt, and biology are essential for future projections of Arctic climate. In this session we invite contributions from observational and model studies, studying the processes, mechanisms, and changes of the Arctic Ocean.

Hosted by Noah Becker & Max Anders

Autonomous and remotely operated vehicles are becoming more influential as research platforms for ocean sciences, the industry, and other applications. This trend emerging from better lasting cells for electrical energy, or the new development of microelectronics and sensors provides an attractive field for young engineers. Apart from a large variety of AUVs and ROVs available on the marked or self-made, there are multiple different approaches to collecting data underwater. In this session, we would also love to learn about your ideas on sensors and systems one can use on such a platform. Professionals, researchers and graduates from different backgrounds get the chance to present their own ideas and involve others in a constructive discussion.