• What are the effects of climate change on key functions (e.g., biodiversity, energy and matter fluxes) of marine ecosystems?

• What is the significance of these changes for ecological goods and services that the oceans provide for man?

• How can scientific knowledge on these issues be best transferred to other stakeholders and the general public?

These are key questions that our research group is addressing, with focus on marine seabed ecosystems in the Arctic, North Sea and Antarctic.

We explore the impact of environmental factors on the variability of ecosystem functions in space and time. Our core tools are CRITTERBASE, a science-driven data warehouse for marine biotas, and spatial models. CRITTERBASE (© AWI) is open source shareware and can be used as global and local application.

In addition, we build customized information products for the knowledge transfer