Report of the 1999 MONITOR and REX workshops, and the 2000 MODEL workshop on lower trophic level modelling

"This volume summarizes the results of workshops organized by the PICES-GLOBEC Climate Change and Carrying Capacity Program held just prior to the Eighth Annual Meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, in October 1999 ... One of the most important goals is to integrate the results of national GLOBEC and related programs in order to review and promote a better understanding of how climate change affects the ecosystems of the North Pacific Ocean ... The MONITOR Task Team first met in 1998 in Fairbanks. Since that initial meeting a number of initiatives to improve monitoring of the North Pacific Ocean have been successfully implemented. As this report indicates, large-scale plankton monitoring has begun with the deployment of a Hardy Continuous Plankton Recorder in the year 2000 ... The REX Task Team held a workshop to review the population dynamics of herring and euphausiids around the Pacific Rim. Typical of small pelagic animals, large changes in the abundance of these key members of coastal ecosystems are observed over time, and interesting data on the changes in feeding success and overwinter energy depletion were reported ... Finally, the MODEL Task Team met to discuss developments during the past year and to make the final plans for an intensive workshop scheduled for Nemuro, Japan, in January 2000. The extensive report from that meeting is included here, and describes the results of a substantial effort by many members of the PICES modelling community to develop a consensus on the essential elements of an ecosystem model for the North Pacific Ocean; their progress in doing so will provide an essential stepping stone towards a better understanding of what aspects of the ecosystem are most important to measure and monitor in the future ..."--Exec. Sum.