Abstract :
International Biology Symposium was special in a number
of ways. Amongst these, most importantly, its title was that
of a SCAR Special Research Programme, indicating a
convergence of the various disciplines within Antarctic
biology, hitherto operating in more than one international
research program.
Until 2004 marine biologists on the one hand and
terrestrial and limnetic biologists on the other operated
alongside each other, with little interaction between them.
Marine biological research played a dominant role in the
framework of SCAR. With the collaborative research
programmes BIOMASS (Biological Investigations of
Marine Antarctic Systems and Stocks) and its successor
EASIZ (Ecology of the Antarctic Sea Ice Zone) (Hempel
2007) the marine biologists were highly successful not least
because the results were immediately applicable in
developing management strategies in the framework of the
Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine
Living Resources (CCAMLR).
