PROJECT

Energy flow in Southern Ocean ecosystems: comparing mass balance and size-based approaches

Stacey McCormack’s project aims to develop a quantitative framework for assessing food web structure and energy flows for Australia’s area of interest, the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. Alternative metrics for energy flow will be compared between two modelling approaches (mass balance and size-based) to evaluate present and future ecosystem states under scenarios of environmental change and fisheries pressure. This comparison of the two approaches will inform the development of end-to-end ecosystem models (including physical and socioeconomic processes) and will help in evaluating the robustness of predictions of climate change and fisheries impacts for the Southern Ocean. Stable isotope analysis will be integrated in the parameterisation and evaluation of these models to help to address their uncertainty to ensure they provide robust assessments of the likelihood of different future states to inform management decisions.

SUPERVISORS

Dr Jessica Melbourne-Thomas	Dr Rowan Trebilco
Dr Andrew Constable	Dr Julia Blanchard

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