Projects

Project Profile: MARAT

Marine Arctic Resilience, Adaptations and Transformations

Who?

Principal Investigators: Juan Carlos Rocha, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden
Partners: Kevin Berry, University of Alaska Anchorage, USA
Jean-Sébastien Moore, Université Laval, Canada
Les Harris, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canada
Sebastian Villasante, International Council for Exploration of the Seas, Denmark
Elena Bennett, McGill University, Canada
Anne Sophie Crépin, Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Sweden
Susa Niiranen, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden
Garry Peterson, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden
Sponsors: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canada
Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education, Denmark
Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning, Sweden
National Science Foundation, United States

What?

Full Project Title: Marine Arctic Resilience, Adaptations and Transformations
Full Call Title: Arctic2019
Website: https://www.juanrocha.se/project/marat/

Why?

Project Objective: Arctic marine food webs are changing at unprecedented rates and it is uncertain how species will adapt, how new ecological configurations will emerge, and how communities dependent on marine resources will cope with change. This project will integrate models, local knowledge, and comparative case studies to assess the resilience of Arctic marine food webs to climate and fishing pressures, and how communities adapt or transform to such changes. The project use methods and theories from the natural and social sciences, as well as integrating perspectives from local communities, national governmental agencies and multilateral institutions all focused on sustainable fisheries. Our work will be divided in four work packages (WPs). WP1 is developing a generic food web model that takes into account biological relevant features of Arctic marine food webs. We will then focus on two in-depth case studies, one in Nunavut and Nunavik, Canada (WP2) and another on salmon fisheries in Alaska (WP3). In Nunavut is studying how indigenous local knowledge and scientific understanding can inform adaptive co-management practices. In Alaska we are exploring the tradeoffs among commercial, touristic, and subsistence fisheries of salmon and the response of its wild and domesticated populations to climate change. In WP4 we develop tools to assess the adaptive and transformative capacities of Arctic communities to changes in their marine environments. We will expand previous efforts of the Arctic Resilience Report to upscale the resilience assessment of the Arctic. Our four work packages together will provide insights on how marine food webs are changing in the Arctic, and what opportunities and challenges they pose to governing agencies and local communities depending on marine ecosystem services.
Call Objective: This joint Belmont Forum CRA calls for co-developed and co-implemented proposals from integrated teams of natural and social scientists, and stakeholders to address key areas of arctic resilience understanding and action. This collaboration of academic and non-academic knowledge systems constitutes a trans-disciplinary approach that will advance not only understanding of the fundamentals of arctic resilience but also spur action, inform decision-making, and translate into solutions for resilience.

Where?

Regions: Arctic, Europe, North America
Countries: Canada, Denmark, Sweden, United States of America (USA)

When?

Duration: 36
Call Date: 20 February 2019
Project Award Date: 5 February 2020