Foreword 



Included here in its entirety is the BERPAC Program paper, published in 1991 [J.F. Turner, H.J. O'Connor, Yu.A. Izrael, and 

 A. V. Tsyban (eds. )( 1991 )]: BERPAC — A Program for Long-term Ecological Research of Ecosystems of the Bering and Chukchi 

 Seas and the Pacific Ocean. National Fund for the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Bowie, Maryland]. BERPAC refers to 

 joint research of the US and USSR in the Bering Sea and central Pacific Ocean since 1 977. The Bering Sea portion of the project 

 has included three joint research expeditions (1977, 1984, and 1988) between the two countries. The central Pacific portion of 

 the project was established in 1 988 when the first joint expedition took place. The central Pacific segment, therefore, has not had 

 the opportunity to go through the same maturing process as that of the Bering Sea. As time goes on, and research continues, goals 

 and objectives to be accomplished will be further developed. The paper is included here as a Foreword to show the correlation 

 with this volume 's sister monograph. Results of the Third Joint US-USSR Bering & Chukchi Seas Expedition (BERPAC), Summer 

 1988. 



BERPAC 



A Program for Long-term Ecological Research of Ecosystems of the Bering and Chukchi Seas and the Pacific Ocean 



Introduction 



Deterioration of ecosystems on a large scale threatens 

 many functional equilibria in the biosphere. This problem is 

 particularly urgent for the World Ocean, which is the sink for 

 many different pollutants that can produce significant ecological 

 impacts. 



The ocean is able to assimilate a certain amount of 

 anthropogenic compounds due to "self-purification" without 

 visible deterioration of the ecosystem. However, continuous 

 increase in the flux of pollutants to the ocean creates the need 

 for study of the resistance of marine ecosystems to anthropogenic 

 impacts. Investigations of ecological consequences and 

 elucidation of causal relationships between the impact levels 

 and adverse biological effects are only poorly understood for 

 the marine environment. The study of these interactions and 

 responses is interdisciplinary in character and covers different 

 fields of biology, ecology, chemistry, and physics of the sea. 



The dynamics of marine ecosystems, including biological 

 and physical processes and biogeochemical cycles, are closely 

 related to changes in the climate of the Earth. The predicted 

 global warming may have a pronounced effect on certain vital 

 processes in the World Ocean, especially the resistance of its 

 ecosystems to anthropogenic contamination. This is because 

 the living ocean determines, to a great degree, the normal 

 functions of the Earth's climatic system. 



Long-term observations of physical, geochemical, and 

 hydrobiological processes are necessary for the assessment of 

 ecological consequences of contamination in the ocean 

 environment and isolation of local anthropogenic effects 

 compared to the effect of climatic variability. 



The Bering Sea is located between the coasts of the Soviet 

 Far East (USSR) and Alaska (USA), and naturally an interest 

 in the study of its ecosystems has been shown by Soviet and 

 American scientists (Izrael & Tsyban, 1983a, 1977, 1990; 

 Roscigno, 1990). 



In spite of comprehensive studies carried out in the Bering 

 Sea in the last few years (Izrael etai, 1988b; Izrael & Tsyban, 

 1989, 1990; Coachman, 1990; Roscigno, 1990), a number of 

 the oceanographic, hydrochemical. and biological parameters 



determining its ecosystem functions are as yet poorly known 

 when compared with, for instance, the Baltic, Mediterranean, 

 and Black Seas. For example, the joint bilateral program of 

 Bering/Chukchi investigations have been carried out for more 

 than 13 years with the production of three monographs of 

 cruise results. However, the as yet inadequate data on the 

 characteristics and processes occurring in the ecosystems of 

 the Bering Sea and North Pacific waters has led to the 

 organization and implementation of an international program: 

 Long-term Ecological Research of Ecosystems of the Bering 

 and Chukchi Seas and the Pacific Ocean (BERPAC Program). 



Goals, Objectives, and Scientific Basis of the BERPAC 

 Program 



Goals 



The goal of the BERPAC Program is to examine the status 

 of marine ecosystems of the Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, and 

 Chukchi Sea and to assess their role in determining global 

 climate. BERPAC will study the dynamics of these ecosystems 

 related to conditions of global climate change and anthropogenic 

 contamination. 



Objectives and Scientific Basis of the BERPAC Program 



Objectives of the BERPAC Program consist of the study 

 of the biogeochemical cycles of contaminants, related 

 oceanographic processes, and food-web interactions in the 

 North Pacific waters that flow through the Bering/Chukchi 

 Seas, including study of the behavior of organic pollutants at 

 the water/sediment interface, since sediments are sources of 

 the secondary pollution of ecosystems. Important topics of 

 study are the control and the accumulation of pollutants in 

 bottom deposits, and the study of their migration within the 

 sediments and exchange with overlying waters are important 

 topics of study. 



1. Assessment of Ecological Consequences of Contamination 



Progressively severe changes in chemical contamination 



of the ocean biosphere are on the increase. Anthropogenic 



in 



