Description: The North Sea has been and still is one of the most intensely used marine areas worldwide. Shipping (trade and private), the exploration/exploitation of energy resources (oil, gas and wind), fisheries and tourism compete for the scarce space (Holm et al. 2017). Especially, in German waters, resource-use conflicts rise between stakeholders.

Description: Coastal marine environments provide livelihoods as billions of people around the world depend greatly on sustainability efforts in the Blue Economy. In this study, we investigated how stakeholders from important Blue Economy sectors along the German North Sea coast perceive the impacts of climate change on their daily work life and the growth of the Blue Economy. In a two-stage approach we first conducted two stakeholder workshops with representatives from the regional sea food sector, science, NGOs and local authorities, in order to identify important issues linked to climate change affecting environment, society, economy and policy. In the second stage, we conducted semi-structured interviews with key knowledge holders from the Blue Economy, to evaluate and validate the most important issues identified during the first stage, and the impacts on the respective sectors. The workshop participants identified perceptible effects of climate change on their marine environment. Early career scientists showed that they possess a clear focus on measures for climate change adaptation, transdisciplinary approaches and knowledge transfer. The interviews revealed that the climate change effects could be perceived as both negative and positive, depending on the sector. Other issues, especially political decisions and developments are perceived to have a greater immediate impact on the Blue Economy than the slow progress of climate change effects. Additionally, increased human activities, in the form of new or intensified uses like marine renewable energy generation, have a greater influence and lead to conflicts between the Blue Economy sectors. Our study showed that economic and societal stakeholders in Germanys North Sea region are aware of climate change and already perceive its effects on their businesses. Synergies and conflicts between the sectors and political decisions might influence sustainable growth of the Blue Economy in highly contested regions, such as the North Sea basin, much stronger than the effects of climate change. This calls for a more flexible and adaptive approach to policymaking, taking into account the changing environmental, social and economic realities.

Description: Global climate change has a wide range of effects on marine ecosystems. One of the most apparent consequences is the shift in local biodiversity induced by e.g. altering temperatures and changes in species range. The biodiversity and economy in the North Sea are especially affected by those shifts in the distribution and abundance of native and non-native species as well as extreme weather events. These pressures can have cumulative effects on entire food webs as well as the goods and services we draw from the stability and productivity of these ecosystems. Despite the major challenges this problem poses on a global scale we will have to combat its causes and adapt to the coming changes on a local scale, requiring local adaptation strategies and involving all relevant stakeholders. Two workshops were conducted to assess perceived threats and opportunities and highlight the areas stakeholders perceive to be the most important in adapting to the coming changes. The first workshops target group consisted of stakeholders ranging from fisheries, fish processing, local government and tourism associations to NGOs, while the seconds target audience were early stage marine researchers. Perceptions about the importance of certain shifts and trends differ widely between the groups. Local directly affected stakeholders have differing priorities from scientists and envision different approaches to adaptation. This highlights the need for improved communication between all parties to enable the creation of effective adaptation strategies.

Description: Worldwide, in many coastal areas the local populations and economies depend on the goods and services the marine ecosystems provide. The pressure on those ecosystems has continuously increased in the last decades due to climate change and intensified anthropogenic use. Especially in coastal regions environmental changes, like increased storm intensity and frequency, changes in precipitation, increasing sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification, have tremendous effects on sea food production. Despite the global nature of this problem, we will have to tackle its causes and adapt to the coming changes on local scales, requiring local adaptation strategies and involvement of all relevant stakeholders. This study takes a trans-disciplinary approach to identify the threats as well as the opportunities climate change poses for the sea food industries on the German North Sea Coast. Two workshops were conducted to approach and involve key stakeholders and to tap their knowledge bases to obtain a new problem focus. The first workshop targeted a broad audience of local stakeholders from fisheries, fish processing, local government and tourism associations to NGOs, while the second workshops target audience were early stage marine researchers. Even though the participants’ perceptions were different in the two workshops and many different topics of importance were identified, they both noticed a great demand for improved communication between different stakeholder groups to enable the development of a local adaptation strategy for the sea food industries. One of the most important lessons learned from the workshops and stakeholder involvement is that a direct and clear transfer of knowledge between the different parties is crucial to increase the understanding of the process and impacts of climate change (Fig. 1). Furthermore novel inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches are needed in climate change research and management for the sea food industries including aquaculture and fisheries.

Description: The European oyster Ostrea edulis played a key role in the North Sea by providing several ecosystem functions and services. Today, O. edulis is classified as severely degraded or functionally extinct in Europe. Marine conservation is focusing on biogenic reef restoration, namely the restoration of O. edulis in Natura 2000 sites of the North Sea. The identification of oyster larvae related to natural spatfalls of restored reefs and monitoring of larval drift is a key aspect of marine protected area management. Morphological identification and distinction from other abundant bivalve larvae using microscopy is difficult. Existing molecular biological methods are expensive and bound to stationary laboratory equipment, or are inadequate in the visualization. In this study, we identified nucleic acid lateral flow immunoassay (NALFIA), a well-established tool in human pathogen diagnostics, as an efficient approach for point-of-care (POC) testing in marine monitoring. Based on the genetic sequence of the mitochondrial cytochrome b of O. edulis, forward and reverse primers were developed. The reverse primer was labelled with fluorescent dye FITC, forward primer with biotin. Reaction on the lateral flow stripe could be realized with a single O. edulis larva in direct PCR with multiplex primers in a portable PCR-cycler. The established NALFIA system can distinguish O. edulis larvae from Crassostrea gigas and Mytilus edulis larvae, respectively. This method offers new approaches in POC testing in marine research and monitoring. It gives quick and clear results, is inexpensive, and could be easily adapted to other species of interest.