The aim of PADDLE is to analyse the opportunities and limits of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) in the tropical Atlantic. Work package 2 addresses this aim by contributing with a review on the status of some key ecosystems of North East Brazil and North West Africa showing communalities and differences on the sustainable management of such ecosystems.

During this secondment, various meetings were performed to discuss and shape the structure and content of the review paper. The title envisage is « Review of marine ecosystem dynamics across Southern Atlantic ». It was decided, that the Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) approach will be used as a unit to be addressed (Canary Current LME, East Brazil LME). Secondee W. Ekau has been selected to act as the lead author, M. Araujo, A. Bertrand, A. Costa, F. Lucena and M. Zimmer as principle co-authors. Other co-authors have been defined to contribute to the various chapters. Deadlines have been set to deliver a first draft until 30 June 2018, mainly containing first drafts of the different chapters, and to be edited by the lead author.

Key words to be addressed in the review paper concerning the comparison of the two LMEs: trends over time, connectivity, space-for-time, coastal wetlands, shelf, pelagic, habitat dynamics, biodiversity, area loss, climate change.