different types of killer whales live in the Southern Ocean. They are known to differ in feeding ecology and appearance. However, little is known about the distribution and behaviour of these different [...] whale ecotypes. To answer these questions, scientists monitor the whales’ communication with specific underwater sound recorders. However, so far nobody knew, which calls the different ecotypes are using

rising and the Wadden Sea ecosystems are changing rapidly (Figure 1). At the Wadden Sea station of Sylt we have one of the most detailed and species rich marine time series in the world. The so-called Sylt [...] years, much of the work on the LTER has focused on key species and their role in habitat stability and species function. The demise of and introduction of species especially in the context of resilience [...] and taxonomical biodiversity of the North Sea, as well as the computation of flows of energy and nutrients through the system also via models. We aim to integrate the different data sets using modelling

UN Decade of Ocean Science Spotlight on the Ocean It’s a world full of riddles: though the ocean shapes the face of our ‘blue planet’, covering 70 percent of its surface, we still know far too little about [...] safety. In the context of the Decade, all of this knowhow is to be made available worldwide. And last but not least, the goal is to raise awareness for the economic, social and cultural value of the ocean; [...] network that investigates open research questions and develops solutions for the preservation and sustainable use of the ocean. Its motto: “The science we need for the ocean we want”. After all, intact ocean

The scientific diving programme at the University of Plymouth The scientific diving programme at the University of Plymouth Dr Keiron Fraser Associate Professor Marine Conservation Instrumentation HSE [...] Campaign for Nature – a partnership with the Wyss Foundation to try to protect half of the planet by 2050, use 2030 as a milestone towards this and have 30 % of the land and sea protected and properly managed [...] in the end of 2020 where National Governments have the opportunity to sign up to this commitment and we need the public voice to be pressuring politicians to commit. If you want to know more about how

tal conditions of the future. This implies that we research the state of the Earth System over a time span of several tens of millions of years. While we employ a diverse approach, the following time scales [...] considering the properties of the climate of the past. We are able to reconstruct past climate changes from historical data collections or by evaluating documented observations. The history of Earth provides [...] climate change? This is one of research's central questions. To give a proper answer, we have to know the parameters of natural variability, e.g. the temperatures in oceans, above the continents and in polar

little about the life of the world’s second-largest whale. That makes the findings of researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the Johann [...] Antarctic Peninsula
During the era of commercial whaling, fin whales were hunted so intensively that only a small percentage of the population in the Southern Hemisphere survived, and even today, marine [...] where in the peak month of May, so many fin whale vocalizations can be heard that the individual calls merge into a veritable chorous of sound, as the research team now reports in the journal Royal Society

in the world. The Polarstern operates an average of 305 days a year, typically cruising in the Antarctic from November to March and pursuing research in the Arctic during the summer months. In the process [...] disposal, stored on a total of 9 winches. Food and drink In a month of operations, the Polarstern’s engines and boiler burn ca. 900 tonnes of diesel fuel. In the same amount of time, the ship’s galley bakes 3 [...] An Icon of German Polar Research The Research Vessel Polarstern is the most important resource for German polar research and the flagship of the Alfred Wegener Institute. Commissioned on 9 December 1982

run down the continental slope towards the deep sea floor. The newly formed and well ventilated bottom water underrides, steered by bottom topography, the ACC to fill the deep basins of the world ocean. [...] downward to the deep ocean layers or to the sediment. This process is called the biological pump. Whether the Southern Ocean at large acts as a source or a sink of CO2 for the atmosphere depends on the balance [...] in the Southern Ocean is brought about by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) which, driven by strong westerly winds and the temperature differences between the subtropics and the icy Antarctic continent

landmass, sending up to 150 times the flow of all the world’s rivers clockwise around the frozen continent. It connects all the other oceans, and is thought to play a key role in regulating natural climate swings [...] Southern Ocean
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is the planet’s most powerful and arguably most important. It is the only one to flow clear around the globe without getting diverted by any landmass [...] swings that have repeatedly swept the earth for millions of years. But much is still not known about how it works, including how it might now respond to human-induced climate change.

filmed thousands of nests of icefish of the species Neopagetopsis ionah on the seabed. The density of the nests and the size of the entire breeding area suggest a total number of about 60 million icefish [...] breeding at the time of observation. These findings provide support for the establishment of a Marine Protected Area in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. A team led by Autun Purser from the Alfred [...] Fascinating discovery
Near the Filchner Ice Shelf in the south of the Antarctic Weddell Sea, a research team has found the world's largest fish breeding area known to date. A towed camera system ph