Marine ecosystems around the North Pacific are changing. Over the past decade physical, chemical, and biological processes have been altered by climate change and anthropogenic impacts. In response, species’ ranges have shifted, disrupting ecosystem goods and services, including fisheries resources upon which communities around the North Pacific depend. Understanding, characterizing and forecasting ecosystem changes will ensure managers and policy makers have the information needed to maintain ecosystem biodiversity, structure and function, and ultimately sustainable utilization of ocean resources. Assessments that use observation-based indicators of ecosystem conditions coupled with numerical models capable of predicting future marine ecosystem conditions at short (seasonal to interannual), medium (decadal) and long-term (multi-decadal) scales can inform management and policy decisions.

We invite submissions related to characterizing and understanding drivers of North Pacific ecosystem change and their impacts to, and resilience of, ecosystem resources and services. Drivers may include but are not limited to climate change, ocean acidification, coastal eutrophication, aquaculture, fishing, pollution, coastal development, non-indigenous species, and cumulative impacts of multiple stressors. Further, it is recognized that there are inherent trade-offs among multiple-use ocean activities, and mechanisms are needed to resolve these to ensure sustainable use of North Pacific resources and ecosystems. Thus, presentations are welcome that address leading indicators of change in exploited resources (i.e., fisheries stocks), non-linear and threshold responses of trophic linkages from phytoplankton to top predators, and approaches integrating monitoring and modeling to forecast ecosystem responses that can inform management and policy options.