Marine Biodiversity Networking Friday: The Weddel Sea Observatory of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Change
On March 13, 2026, from 1:00 to 2:00 PM UTC+0, we will host a special session with Dr Hauke Flores focusing on the Weddell Sea Observatory of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Change (WOBEC). WOBEC aims to co-design a long-term ecosystem monitoring framework in the Eastern Weddell Sea — one of the Southern Ocean’s ecologically valuable yet under-observed regions. By integrating historical data with novel observations and engaging scientists, governance bodies and stakeholders from conservation and industry, WOBEC is creating the “DNA” of a distributed observatory for biodiversity and ecosystem change. Its multiscale strategy combines traditional ship-based methods with autonomous systems and novel technologies to quantify biodiversity and ecosystem services across sea ice, water column and seafloor habitats. Experiences from the WOBEC expedition aboard RV Polarstern, which set out in austral summer 2025/2026 to test and ground-truth these approaches, will give a first impression which challenges will need to be solved in order to achieve the WOBEC objectives.
Speakers
Hauke Flores
Researcher, Alfred-Wegener-Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), DE
Co-creating an Antarctic long-term monitoring framework with scientists and stakeholders
Dr Hauke Flores is a polar researcher and marine biologist with focus on sea-ice ecosystems. He conducts research as a scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Hauke Flores was born in 1974 in Bremerhaven and studied biology at the University of Hamburg (1996-2002). Afterwards, he worked for a year as a fisheries observer at the Federal Fisheries Research Institute, now the Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries (2002-2003). From there he moved to the Institute for Marine Research and Ecosystem Studies in the Netherlands (2003-2011), where he conducted research on the topic of under-ice communities in Antarctica. He received his PhD at the University of Gronigen in 2009. From 2012-2017, Hauke Flores led the Helmholtz Young Investigators Group Iceflux at AWI in collaboration with the University of Hamburg. Since 2017, he has been working as a permanent scientist at AWI.
Hauke Flores has participated in 13 international expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. He has published over 50 scientific papers, mainly on the importance of climate change for sea ice-dependent communities and the use of biological resources in the polar regions.
Hauke Flores is a member of various national and international advisory bodies such as the Working Group of an Integrated Ecosystem Assessment of the Arctic Ocean of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES WG-ICA). Hauke Flores also represents Germany in the Arctic Council’s Expert Group Marine Ecosystems of the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CBMP-Marine), and is the current chair of the Scientific Coordinating Group of the Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement (CAOFA-SCG). Hauke Flores is involved in education at school and university, has published several chapters in non-fiction and textbooks, advises journalists and authors on polar ecology topics, and regularly gives public lectures at events and on the web.
Moderator
Kendra Daily
Professor, College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, USA
Dr. Kendra Daly is a Professor in the College of Marine Sciences at the University of South Florida. She received a B.S. in Oceanography and a M.S. in Fisheries from the University of Washington, and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Tennessee. She then received a Hollaender Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2015, she became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In addition to academic life, she was a National Science Foundation (NSF) Program Director in Biological Oceanography for four years and participated in the planning, development, deployment, and later oversight of the NSF’s Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) facilities for > 20 years. She completed > 30 cruises to the Arctic and the Antarctic since 1979. She investigated various aspects of the Antarctic marine food web in the Scotia-Weddell seas, western Antarctic Peninsula region, Bellingshausen Sea, the Ross Sea, and McMurdo Sound as part of large Antarctic research programs, including the Krill BIOMASS assessments (FIBEX, SIBEX), Antarctic Marine Ecosystem Research at the Ice Edge Zone (AMERIEZ), Antarctic Marine Living Resources (AMLR), Antarctic Pack Ice Seals (APIS), and Southern Ocean Global Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) programs.
We will continue with the Networking Fridays during the next months. More information about future sessions as well as presentations and videos from previous sessions can be found here. Please do not forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Twitter Hashtag: #netfridays. Expect some very exciting mornings, afternoons or evenings, depending on where you are…
If you need any additional information please send an email to Catarina Paes Duarte.
