Report of the Benthos Ecology Working Group (BEWG)

The Benthos Ecology Working Group (BEWG) held its 2009 meeting at the Askö La-boratory, which is a facility of the University of Stockholm, Sweden. Twenty partici-pants representing twelve countries attended and worked on the proposed agenda. Participants also reported on ongoing benthos research within the ICES region.ToR a) The BEWG reviewed the outcome of the WKCBNS (Wilhelmshaven, Decem-ber 2008). The “Small scale box approach” was presented together with various hypo-theses on the impacts of climate change on the benthos. The creation of an ad hoc Study Group (Chairs: H. Reiss and S. Birchenough) to further the research ideas was proposed. Close collaboration with other ICES EGs, especially those with an expertise in ecosystem and habitat suitability modeling and habitat mapping was deemed to be beneficial for the development of this SG.