The Institute of Marine Sciences is hosting this week the first meeting of COMEDA experts working group.

The Institute of Marine Sciences is hosting this week the meeting of COMEDA experts working group, which is the first meeting of this new ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) working group. The meeting is attended by 20 participants from various European scientific institutions, including Spain, France, Greece, England, Denmark and Germany.

WG COMEDA is an integrative and comparative platform at two levels. First, bringing together scientists from Atlantic and Mediterranean. Second, the WG calls for a comparative platform of research to harmonize and integrate the knowledge on populations, communities and ecosystems structure and function, as well as how different organization levels face external stressors.

The aim of COMEDA is to identify sensitive species (or species compartment) and/or ecological process to environmental and anthropogenic stressors to be analyzed across geographic gradients. As a first approach the WG will use as comparative platform for analyses the forage species compartment. In this context, forage species will be not restricted exclusively to pelagic species, they also include other benthic or demersal species (fish and invertebrates) sustaining upper trophic levels (large predators) of the ecosystem.

The meeting is organized by Dr. Manuel Hidalgo and Dr. Hilmar Hinz of the Spanish Balearic Institute of Oceanography and Dr. Marta Coll from the Research Institute for the Development of France.

More information about COMEDA “Working Group on Comparative Analyses between European Atlantic and Mediterranean marine ecosystems”
http://www.ices.dk/community/groups/Pages/WGCOMEDA.aspx

More information about ICES “International Council for the Exploration of the Sea"
http://www.ices.dk