Small Cetaceans and Climate Change Workshop

SMALL CETACEANS AND CLIMATE CHANGE WORKSHOP

At the February 2009 workshop on Cetaceans and Climate Change, held in Siena, Italy it was recommended that the small cetaceans sub-committee consider a series of hypotheses that link climate to the population trajectories of small cetaceans, with the aim of identifying species, areas and research situations that could be informative. It was acknowledged that the ongoing rapid change in global climate has major implications for many species of small cetaceans and therefore that improved understanding of how populations are likely to respond is important.

An intersessional workshop was held from 28 November – 1st December 2010 in Vienna, Austria in order to address these issues. The Report of that workshop can be found HERE.

Terms of Reference

At the 2010 Annual Scientific Committee meeting it was agreed that the workshop should focus on three main topics:

restricted habitats – estuaries, reefs, environmental discontinuities, rivers and shallow waters;
range changes – i.e. evidence of changes in distributions, reasons and consequences; and
the Arctic Region (to be considered via a presented review).

The following documents are available to download:

Workshop Documents
Title	Link	Kb
Report of the Workshop on Small Cetaceans and Climate Change	here	564
Draft Agenda	here	24
CC1 Key Studies For Creating A Scientific Framework For Understanding How Climate Change is Likely To Affect Cetaceans	here	26
CC2 Key Principles For Creating A Scientifically-Robust Framework For Understanding, Predicting And Mitigating The Impacts Of Climate Change On Cetaceans	here	53
CC3 The potential role of submarine canyons as ecological refuges for cetacean diversity in a changing ocean environment: a proposed case study in an ecological cul-de-sac	here	274
CC4 Comprehensive assessment needed on the implications of climate change for freshwater-dependent cetaceans	here	253
CC5 Dolphin densities and distributions in the Barents Sea and potential influences by the recent temperature increase	here	639
For Information Documents
1 Climate change and cetaceans: concerns and recent developments	here	681
2 Potential impacts of climate change & greenhouse gas emissions on Mediterranean marine ecosystems and cetaceans	here	1M
3 Climate change and cetaceans	here	5M
4 Impacts of changing sea-ice conditions on Arctic marine mammals	here	453
5 Dynamics of sea mammal and bird populations of the Bering Sea region over the last several millennia	here	938
6 Marine Mammals as Ecosystem Sentinels	here	513
7 Effects of Climate Change on Arctic Marine Mammal Health	here	407
8 Population genetic structure and evolutionary history of North Atlantic beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) fromWest Greenland, Svalbard and the White Sea	here	1M
9 Lacaziosis in bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus along the coastal Atlantic Ocean, Florida, USA	here	343
10 Forecasting the consequences of climate-driven shifts in human behavior on cetaceans	here	393
11 River Cetaceans and Habitat Change: Generalist Resilience or Specialist Vulnerability?	here	313
Background Documents
Report of the IWC Scientific Committee Workshop on Habitat Degradation	here	2M
Report of the Workshop on Cetaceans and Climate Change	here	885
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