Harmful Algal Blooms and Climate Change
Scientific Symposium
May 19-22, 2015, Göteborg, Sweden

Scope and Objectives

There is emerging evidence that Climate Change (CC) already is impacting coastal and offshore marine phytoplankton communities, and that future trends may include increases in the frequency and severity of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). But the projections of CC:HAB effects remain largely speculative. Some fundamental linkages are clearly anticipated; for example, the projected increases in surface water stratification that in principle will favour many cyanobacteria and toxic dinoflagellates. But these and other expected linkages are founded on limited and often conflicting experimental data. Given our poor success in predicting present-day HAB outbreaks, it is reasonable to believe that unexpected linkages will also emerge. So, scientific debate at this time cannot reliably inform on connections between HABs and CC, or how severe any effects on HABs may be in the future.
HAB research over the past few decades has largely centered on three broad areas: (1) identification of HAB organisms and determining their optimal growth conditions, (2) detection and characterization of algal toxins, and (3) investigating HAB species distributions and their ecophysiology in coastal waters. These research thrusts are not well suited to inform on purported CC:HAB linkages. A new focus is needed in HAB research to build understanding of how the competition among HAB and non-HAB species may change with climate. Our current insights about conditions favoring initiation and maintenance of different HABs must be put into the context of long-term alterations in coastal environments. This shift in research priority will not be straightforward, and the path forward is not clear. It is critical that HAB scientists identify the research issues of greatest importance over the next decade to determine what fundamental parameters and research infrastructure are needed to forecast HAB patterns in a changing climate.

Objectives
  • Bring together algal physiologists, ecologists, oceanographers, modellers and climate change specialists to develop a consensus on the priority research directions for future HAB/CC funding.
  • Develop “proactive” research strategies that build rigorous, testable hypotheses to guide scientists, managers and the public on what environmental and HAB changes are projected.
  • Design funding-realistic observing infrastructures (combining research studies, detection schemes, observing systems) to capture the critical datasets needed to assess HAB patterns in relation to measurable indicators of climate change.

Outputs

The finding highlights and perspectives of the Symposium discussions will be published in a high profile peer-reviewed venue to communicate a list of priority HAB research directions over the next decade. A separate summary for policy makers also will be prepared. These resources will help to guide the research community and program funding agencies towards more rapid advancement in knowledge about how HABs will change in the future oceans. In addition, there are plans for publishing a special issue in a peer-reviewed scientific journal on presentations (oral and poster) from the symposium. Details of this effort will be discussed during the symposium.

Structure

The 4-day symposium (May 19-22) will consist of:
  • Plenary sessions in the mornings and afternoons with a very limited number of oral presentations
  • Breakout group discussions each day, where groups are charged to consider and recommend priority research and infrastructure needs to gain better insights on the linkages of climate change and HABs. Recommendations will be reported back to participants for further discussion and refinement.
  • Poster Sessions with dedicated viewing times on May 20-21 mornings to facilitate extensive discussion of poster results. There will be no concurrent sessions during the symposium, though there will be 3-4 concurrent breakout group discussions. The goal is to gain consensus on the priority research themes that will provide HAB researchers, managers, and climate scientists a path forward for maximizing our understanding of the linkages of HABs and climate change.
There will be no concurrent sessions during the symposium, though there will be 3-4 concurrent breakout group discussions. The goal is to gain consensus on the priority research themes that will provide HAB researchers, managers, and climate scientists a path forward for maximizing our understanding of the linkages of HABs and climate change.
Posters will have a prominent role in the symposium and will be on display for the entire duration of the symposium. All health breaks will be held in the poster area to maximize opportunities to view the contributions and to interact with presenters.

Venue

Conference Centre Wallenberg (Medicinaregatan 20 A, Göteborg, Sweden Nearest tram station: Medicinaregatan)
The Conference Centre Wallenberg is a modern, centrally located, and flexible multi-function venue for conferences, meetings and events.
The two main lecture theatres hold 330 and 105 seats respectively. Both are equipped for video conferencing. There are two smaller studios for videoconferencing, and a number of re-configurable seminar rooms, seating from 12 to 40. The seminar rooms can be used as stand-alone venues or in conjunction with the lecture theatres.
The foyer will be used for the icebreaker, breaks and the poster sessions. The dining room serves lunches and the conference dinner. Coffee and refreshments will be served in the foyer at breaks.
The premises are accessible and safe for disabled people.

Organizers

SUPPORTING SPONSORS

PICES
North Pacific Marine Science Organization

FORMAS
Swedish Research Council

GEOHAB
Global Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms

LOCAL SPONSORS and HOST

SMHI
Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute

University of Göteborg


SYMPOSIUM ENDORSEMENTS by

SCOR
Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research

IOC
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO

ICES
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea

SYMPOSIUM CONVENORS
Bengt Karlson (ICES/Sweden)
Mark Wells (PICES)
Raphael Kudela (GEOHAB)
Angela Wulff (Sweden)

Acknowledgement
Special thanks to the Swedish Coast Guard for providing the aerial photograph of the cyanobacteria bloom

Invited Spearkers

Gustaaf Hallegraeff
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies
University of Tasmania Australia

Stephanie Dutkiewitz
Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA

Hans Paerl
Department of Marine Sciences
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill USA

Kevin Flynn
College of Science, Bioscience
Swansea University UK

Joe Silke
Marine Institute Headquarters,
Galway, Ireland

Ted Smayda University of Rhode Island
Graduate School of Oceanography
Rhode Island, USA

Markus Meier Research Department Swedish Meteorological and
Hydrological Institute (SMHI)
Norrköping, Sweden

Catherine Legrand Linnaeus University
Centre for Ecology and Evolution in Microbial model Systems
Kalmar, Sweden

David Turner University of Gothenburg
Department of Chemistry & Molecular Biology
Gothenburg, Sweden

Presentations

 

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Oral Presentations

Bengt Karlson and Angela Wulff
Introduction, goals of the symposium
[pdf, 1 Mb]

Gustaaf M. Hallegraeff
Harmful algal blooms and ocean climate change: Progress on tackling a formidable predictive challenge (Invited talk)
[pdf, 2.5 Mb]

Joe Silke
Short-term HAB forecasting in a changing environment (Invited talk)
[pdf, 4 Mb]

Theodore J. Smayda and Thomas J. Smayda
Climate warming and harmful blooms (Invited talk)
[pdf, 15 Mb]

Annie Chapelle, Carles Guallar-Morillo, Cedric Bacher, Martin Plus, Marc Sourisseau, Guillaume Le Gland, Valerie le Guennec and Laure Guillou
Toxic blooms phenology and abiotic controls in a changing world. The case of Alexandrium minutum in Britany (French coast)
[pdf, 2 Mb]

Elisa Berdalet, Magda Vila and Rafael Abos-Herrandiz
Expansion of the benthic dinoflagellate Ostreopsis with climate change: Health risks assessment and policy strategies for management
[pdf, 1 Mb]

Ichiro Imai, Keigo Yamamoto, Tetsuya Nishikawa and Satoshi Nagai
Long-term trends of harmful algal blooms in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan
[pdf, 2.6 Mb]

Stewart Bernard and Raphael Kudela
Linkage to Other International Programs with an HAB Component
[pdf, 2.2 Mb]

Kedong Yin and Jianzhang He
Red tides are more correlated with climate variability under eutrophic conditions in Hong Kong: Time series analysis
[pdf, 1 Mb]

Catherine Legrand
Cyanobacteria in future climate conditions: Time to project diversity and function, not only biomass
(Invited talk)
[pdf, 4. 5 Mb]

Hans W. Paerl, H. Xu, B. Qin, G. Zhu, N.S. Hall, K.L. Rossignol and J.T. Scott
Climate change: The links to global expansion of harmful cyanobacterial blooms (Invited talk)
[pdf, 5.5 Mb]

David R. Turner
The essentials of pH and the carbon dioxide system for HAB researchers (Invited talk)
[pdf, 0.2 Mb]

Meri Eichner, Isabell Klawonn, Samuel T. Wilson, Matthew J. Church, David M. Karl and Helle Ploug
Microenvironments of Trichodesmium colonies - Implications for ocean acidification responses
[pdf, 0. 5 Mb]

Andreas Brutemark, Angeliqué Vandelannoote, Jonna Engström-Öst and Sanna Suikkanen
A less saline Baltic Sea promotes cyanobacterial growth, hampers intracellular microcystin production, and leads to strain-specific differences in allelopathy
[pdf, 1 Mb]

Callum Whyte, Sarah Swan and Keith Davidson
A climate link to the exceptional 2013 bloom of Dinophysis in Scottish waters and its associated diarrhetic shellfish poisoning event?
[pdf, 2 Mb]

Peter A. Thompson, Todd D. O'Brien, Hans W. Paerl, Benjamin L. Peierls, Paul J. Harrison and Malcolm Robb
Precipitation as a driver of phytoplankton ecology in coastal waters: A climatic perspective
[pdf, 2.4 Mb]

Lisa Campbell and Darren Henrichs
Long-term time series of phytoplankton dynamics and community composition from the Imaging FlowCytobot can reveal impacts of climate change
[pdf, 3 Mb]

Stephanie Dutkiewicz, Ben Ward, Jeff Morris, Jeff Scott, Mick Follows, Sonya Dyhrman and Ilana Berman- Frank
Exploring marine phytoplankton biogeography through theory and models: Applications to climate change studies (Invited talk)
[pdf, 1.2 Mb]

Kevin J. Flynn
Modelling harmful algal growth under climate change (Invited talk)
[pdf, 1.5 Mb]

Maarten De Rijcke, Gabriel M. Orellana, Julie Vanden Bussche, Lynn Vanhaecke, Karel A.C. De Schamphelaere and Colin R. Janssen
Shifting N:P ratios do not affect the competitive traits of dinoflagellates under present and future climate scenarios
[pdf, 2 Mb]

Tatiana Yu. Orlova, Polina A. Kameneva and Tatiana V. Morozova
Long-term changes in microalgae communities on the Russian East coast with emphasis on toxic and bloom forming species
[pdf, 2 Mb]

H.E. Markus Meier
Impact of changing physics on marine ecosystems in future coastal seas (Invited talk)
[pdf, NA]

Elisa Villa, Carmem-Lara Manes, Jahir Orozco, Linda Medlin and Delphine Guillebault
Towards real-time in situ monitoring of toxic algae
[pdf, 3.5 Mb]

Bernd Krock and Susan Waugh
Development of seabird based sampling strategies for the determination of plankton communities with special focus on HAB species
[pdf, 3.5 Mb]

Jaap van Nes, Wesley Boënne, Nele Desmet and Piet Seuntjens
Integration of mobile automated monitoring systems with treatment and DSS tools for smart HAB management
[pdf, 3.5 Mb]

 

Poster Presentations

P4-Yum
P5-Dursun
P6_Karlberg
P7-Daghor
P8-Yih
P9-Bresnan
P12-Aleksandrov
P13-Aleksandrov
P14-Reis
P17-Mussagy
P18_Imai
P19-Hanein
P21-Johansen
P22_Asnaghi
P25-Winterton
P26_Fernandez-Tejedor
P28-Krock
P30-Trainer