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). Nevertheless, the projections of CC:HAB effects remain largely
speculative. Some fundamental linkages are clearly anticipated; for example, projected increases in
surface water stratification that in principle may favour many cyanobacteria and toxic dinoflagellates.
But these and other expected linkages are founded on limited and often conflicting experimental and
field 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.
Symposium Objectives
1. 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.
2. Develop “proactive” research strategies that build rigorous, testable hypotheses to guide
scientists, managers and the public on what environmental and HAB changes are projected,
3. 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.
Symposium Outputs
1. 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.
2. A separate summary for policy makers also will be prepared.
3. 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.
4. 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.
Registration is open until April 10, 2015 on the symposium website at http://www.pices.int
Conveners: Bengt Karlson (ICES), Mark Wells (PICES), Raphael Kudela (GEOHAB) and Angela
Wulff (Sweden).