Report of the Working Group on Integrative Physical-biological and Ecosystem Modelling (WGIPEM)

The Working Group on Integrative Physical-Biological and Ecosystem Modelling held their fourth meeting at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Plymouth, UK. Scientists from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, UK, Netherlands, and USA joined the meeting either directly or by correspondence. The focus of the group is to advance state-of-the-art ecosystem-, individual-based and population modelling of marine sys-tems within the ICES areas. It further addresses effective ways of model coupling and knowledge transfer on implementations, parameterizations and tools as well as sensi-tivity testing, model benchmarking, increasing of model confidence and quantifying model uncertainty. The group’s activities help improve model-based advice on press-ing questions related to fisheries and ecosystem management. Seven non-exclusive groups of interest have been created for the year to come, and will focus on: end-to-end modelling including bioeconomical dimension, fish and fisherman movement be-havior, trophic controls including zooplankton as the key component between lower and higher trophic levels, analysis of model performance and uncertainty, connectivity models, frontiers or novel approaches in modelling, and bioenergetics modelling.