The impetus for the conference held at Bombannes, France in May, 1982 arose out of a Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) Working Group on "Mathematical Models in Biological Oceanography". This group was chaired by K.H. Mann and held two meetings in 1977 and 1979. At both meetings it was felt that, although reductionist modelling of marine ecosystems had achieved some successes, the future progress lay in the development of holistic ecosystem models. The members of the group (K.H. Mann, T. Platt, J.M. Colebrook, D.F. Smith, M.J.R. Fasham, J. Field, G. Radach, R.E. Ulanowicz and F. Wulff) produced a critical review of reductionist and holistic models which was published by the Unesco Press (Platt, Mann and Ulanowicz, 1981). One of the conclusions of this review was that, whether holistic or reductionist models are preferred, it is critically important to increase the scientific effort in the measurement of physiological rates for the computation of ecological fluxes. The Working Group therefore recommended that an international meeting should be organized which would attempt to bring together theoretical ecologists and biological oceanographers to assess the present and future capability for measuring ecological fluxes and incorporating these data into models. An approach was made to the Marine Sciences Panel of the NATO Science Committee who expressed an interest in funding such a meeting. They awarded a planning grant and a planning group was formed consisting of M.J.R. Fasham, M.V. Angel, T. Platt, R.E.

Inhalt
One Invited Papers.- The Importance of Measuring Fluxes in Marine Ecosystems.- Community Measures of Marine Food Networks and their Possible Applications.- Thermodynamics of the Pelagic Ecosystem: Elementary Closure Conditions for Biological Production in the Open Ocean.- The Structure of Aquatic Ecosystems and its Dependency on Environmental Conditions.- Eutrophication of a Coastal Marine Ecosystem An Experimental Study Using the MERL Microcosms.- Oceanic Nutrient Cycles.- State-of-the-Art in the Measurement of Primary Production.- Functional Types of Marine Planktonic Primary Producers and their Relative Significance in the Food Web.- Measuring the Metabolism of the Benthic Ecosystem.- The Measurement of the Enthalpy of Metabolism of Marine Organisms.- Bacterial Production in the Marine Food Chain: The Emperor's New Suit of Clothes?.- Suspended Marine Bacteria as a Food Source.- The Biological Role of Detritus in the Marine Environment.- The Cycling of Organic Matter by Bacterioplankton in Pelagic Marine Ecosystems: Microenvironmental Considerations.- An Overview of Secondary Production in Pelagic Ecosystems.- The Quantitative Significance of Gelatinous Zooplankton as Pelagic Consumers.- Fish Production in Open Ocean Ecosystems.- Ecological Efficiency and Activity Metabolism.- Detrital Organic Fluxes Through Pelagic Ecosystems.- The Supply of Food to the Benthos.- Coupling the Sub-Systems the Baltic Sea as a Case Study.- On the Relation of Primary Production to Grazing during the Fladen Ground Experiment 1976.- Two Working Group Reports.- Studies on Marine Autotrophs: Recommendations for the 1980s.- Respiration.- Nutrient Cycling in Estuarine and Coastal Marine Ecosystems.- Excretion and Mineralisation Processes in the Open Sea.- Herbivory.-Detritivory.- Carnivory.- The Role of Free Bacteria and Bactivory.- Participants.