Report of the Working Group on Small Pelagic Fish, their Ecosystems and Climate Impact (WGSPEC)

The Working Group on Small Pelagic Fishes, their Ecosystems and Climate Impact (WGSPEC) had its 3rd meeting at the Centro Oceanográfico de Málaga (in Fuengirola, Spain) of the Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO). It was attended by six scien-tists from four countries. At the WGSPEC meeting in 2012, a plan was developed to write a manuscript on the climate impact on the regime shift around the mid-1990s in ecosystems of NE Atlan-tic, incl. Mediterranean and NW African upwelling, with a focus on AMO/AMV (At-lantic Multidecadal Oscillation/Atlantic Multidecadal Variability) and North Atlantic gyres. The intersessional period was used to further develop this manuscript. These efforts were continued during the 2013 meeting with a focus on atmospheric and oceanographic processes and their impact on ecosystems. The result was a manu-script titled “Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) modulates dynamics of small pelagic fish and ecosystem regime shifts in the eastern North and Central Atlantic” by Jürgen Alheit, Priscilla Licandro, Steve Coombs, Alberto Garcia, Ana Giráldez, Maria Teresa Garcia Santamaría, Aril Slotte, Athanassios C. Tsikliras. The manuscript was refined by correspondence after the meeting and submitted for publication in August 2013 to the Journal of Marine Systems.