The project focuses on the assessment of the impact of environmental change in the Southern Ocean on phytoplankton. Phytoplankton is the key organism determining the functioning of the marine ecosystem and biogeochemical cycle and it can be detected from space. In this study analytical bio-optical retrieval techniques are to be used to develop generic methods, which extract unique global long-term information on phytoplankton composition. The methods will be based on using all available high-resolution optical satellite data which are complemented by in-situ and multi-spectral satellite data. Combined with modeling studies, this information will be used to attribute the relative importance of anthropogenic activity and natural phenomena on the marine ecosystem and biogeochemical cycling of the Southern Oceans during the last decades.