Southern Ocean ecosystems are important in global climate processes, in maintaining biological diversity and supporting fisheries that contribute to global food security. These ecosystems, however, are undergoing major changes driven by both physical and climate related processes and by biological processes associated with the past effects of harvesting, and further changes are expected in the coming decades. In this seminar, I will discuss recent progress in improving understanding of the spatial and temporal operation of Southern Ocean ecosystems. I will highlight particularly some of our recent work on aspects of population processes of Antarctic krill, food webs, and ecosystem operation and change. I will also consider the ecological connectivity between ecosystems in the Southern Ocean and those in areas to the north and across the global oceans, and the implications for understanding how ocean scale ecosystems are structured and function and affected by change.

Eugene Murphy is the Science Leader of the Ecosystems Programme of the British Antarctic Survey and an Individual Merit Scientist (BAS, NERC-UKRI), a Visting Professor at the University of Newcastle and an Honorary Professor at the University of East Anglia. He has over 35 years of research experience and has led BAS Southern Ocean ecosystem research for the last two decades. His research background is in marine population dynamics, ocean ecosystem science and ecological modelling, with particular interests in the impacts of climate change and fisheries. He is currently Chair of the ICED programme (Integrating Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics in the Southern Ocean) and a Vice-Chair of the global ocean IMBeR programme (Integrated Marine Biosphere Research).

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