Participants:

• Tilmann Harder (Uni Bremen/AWI) (Bio/Phys&Chem) (Proposal 1)
• Nadya C. Ramirez Martinez (ITAW) (Bio) (Proposal 2)
• Kristina Lehnert-Sobotta (ITAW) (Bio) (Proposal 2)
• Dominik Nachtsheim (ITAW) (Bio) (Proposal 2)
• Charlotte Havermans, (Uni Bremen) (Bio) (Proposal 3)
• Holger Auel (Uni Bremen) (Bio) (Proposal 5)
• Oliver Wurl (Uni Oldenburg) (Phys/Chem) (Proposal 9)
• Scarlett Trimborn (AWI) (Bio) (Proposal 10)
• Olmo Miguez-Salas (Senckenberg) (Bio) (Proposal 13)
• Jan Tebben, (Uni Bremen, AWI) (Bio/Phys&Chem)
• Joseph Hoffman (Uni Bielefeld) (Bio)
• Oliver Huhn, (Uni Bremen) (Phys&Chem)
• Hans-Peter Grossart (IGB) (Bio)
• Christina Roggatz, (AWI)
• Matthias Wietz (Uni Oldenburg) (Bio)
• Ulf Karsten, (Uni Rostock/SPP) (Bio) Julia Ehrlich (Uni Rostock/SPP) (Bio)

1) Comments:

• The SPP Polarstern expedition should be a truly joint initiative, not only several separate groups together on a ship with a common study region.
• As the SPP Polarstern expedition will be a one-time opportunity, long-term and/or repetitive monitoring activities (for instance in the context of climate change studies) will not be feasible. Instead, the expedition should focus on process studies. Long-term trends could be tackled via comparison with historic data sets for instance from the whaling period.
• One of the first activities for the preparation of the cruise proposal should be the creation of a network plan, how the exchange of data, samples, and organisms shall be organized between the different research teams: What data inform each other when and how? In this context, the different time scales should be taken into account between teams, which collect data directly on board (e.g. physical oceanography, marine mammal surveys), via those, who will have to analyze samples after the cruise (e.g. analysis of plankton samples, molecular genetic analyses, biochemical analysis for trophic biomarkers), to teams, who will conduct long-term experiments in the home lab with organisms to be collected during the cruise.

2) Other research teams not present at the workshop, who could/should be involved in the cruise, preferably from universities:

• Uni Greifswald: Protein biochemistry
• AWI Integrative Ecophysiology: Fish biology and fisheries gear/operations on Polarstern
• Uni Oldenburg / ICBM: Physical Oceanography / CTD and ADCP operation
• WI Physical Oceanography: High-resolution hydrography and physical-biological interactions at (sub-)mesoscale features such as fronts and eddies with AWI Triaxus

3) Collection of Key Words to Find a Suitable Topic/Title for a Joint Cruise Proposal:

• Chemical ecology in pelagic systems
• Food web interactions / Food web dynamics
• Surface – Ice – Ocean
• Species diversity
• Productivity
• Extreme niches
• Anthropogenic change / Climate change
• Resilience
•  Ecosystem health
• Process understanding / Mechanistic understanding

4) Suggestions for a Working Title of the Cruise Proposal:

• Biological Interactions in Ice-Covered Seas: From Chemical Communication Between Organisms to Food-Web Dynamics.
• Understanding Biological Processes in Ice-Covered Seas: From Chemical Communication Between Organisms to Food-Web Interactions. - Species Diversity, Ecosystem Health and Resilience in the Antarctic Weddell Sea.