Developing Essential Biodiversity Variables for the Southern Ocean: From data gaps to valuable insights
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The Southern Ocean is central to global heat and carbon cycling, connecting all the major ocean basins and regulating Earth’s climate system, and hence providing ecosystem services of global significance. However, its ecosystems are increasingly vulnerable to climate change and localized human-induced pressures, such as (biological) resource extraction, pollution, ship traffic, and tourism. Effective conservation and management require systematic and reliable monitoring frameworks. The Essential Variables concept offers a robust approach to integrate fragmented data, to standardize data collection, and to generate policy-relevant data products enabling informed responses to rapid environmental change. This paper synthesizes the key outcomes of a workshop held in Hobart, Australia, alongside the Southern Ocean Observing System Symposium, in 2023. To advance the adoption, development, and operationalization of Essential Variables tailored to the Southern Ocean, researchers with diverse expertise came together to assess current data gaps in ocean observations and to establish monitoring priorities for marine ecosystems. The workshop provided a dedicated forum to identify key Southern Ocean-specific candidate variables, address methodological challenges, and design pathways for developing a systematic, open, and adaptable framework suited to the region’s unique ecological and environmental conditions. In this paper, we propose Essential Biodiversity Variables that are tailored to the Southern Ocean and are intended to monitor changes in sea ice, planktonic, benthic, and top predator systems. The adoption of Essential Biodiversity Variables specific to the Southern Ocean can enhance our capacity to track biodiversity trends, assess ecosystem health, and inform policy by transforming fragmented data into a cohesive, policy-relevant framework. However, the success of these efforts is only possible by securing sustained funding and enhancing interoperability and collaborations across research groups. This paper as well as the Hobart 2023 workshop are activities endorsed by the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
Authors: Charlie Plasman, Alyce M. Hancock, Ben Raymond, Narissa Bax, Denisse Fierro-Arcos, Sian F. Henley, Abigail Benson, Stuart Corney, Karen Evans, Noémie Friscourt, Ruth S. Eriksen, Angus F. Henderson, Svenja Halfter, Jan Jansen, Clive R. McMahon, Andrew Meijers, Patricia Miloslavich, Petra ten Hoopen, Inessa Corney, Andrea Walters, Kerrie Swadling, Yi-Ming Gan, Anton Van de Putte
Institutions: Institute of Natural Sciences, University of Tasmania, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, Australian Antarctic Division, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Centre for Marine Socioecology, Grønlands Naturinstitut, University of Edinburgh, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, CSIRO Environment, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Sydney Institute of Marine Science, British Antarctic Survey, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Language: English
Subfield: Oceanography
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,450
OpenAlex ID: W7128310549