10.5 US Symposium on Harmful Algae

This virtual meeting will not replace our in person meeting, but will provide an opportunity for our community to gather together during these strange times! We still look forward to gathering together in person in New York in 2022!

On behalf of the National HAB Committee (NHC), we would like to welcome everyone to the US HAB Symposium on Harmful Algae 10.5! As most are aware, our 11th symposium was scheduled to be held in New York later this year, however, due to many conferences having to postpone, specifically ICHA, the NHC in consultation with NOAA and the ICHA organizers, made the decision to push back the 11th symposium to Fall 2022. This delay would create a 3-year gap between US HAB symposia. We realized that this extended gap would primarily impact students, post-docs, and early career scientists in the field, so we made the decision to hold an interim virtual meeting to showcase the work exclusively from these groups. The response has been overwhelming - more than 430 registrants! This online venue also provides a way to engage more of the management community, many of whom have been unable to travel to past US HAB meetings due to budget constraints and this has been reflected in the fact that 21% of registrants are joining in from State Management Agencies!

We would like to extend a special thanks to Dr. Jayme Smith for accepting the challenge of leading this unique effort and for putting together a dedicated steering committee to carry out the tasks needed for another successful US HAB meeting!

The planning team has made every effort to incorporate young investigators throughout the planning and execution of this meeting in support of the theme. It is our hope that participants take full advantage of the free registration and enjoy all of the online oral and poster sessions that span our traditional meeting topics. We also urge folks to arrange offline chats during and subsequent to the meeting in order to offer much needed networking opportunities for our young scientists. This meeting serves to support continued collaborations within the research, management and policy communities by creating a forum to exchange scientific information.

While we are looking forward to our next in-person meeting, we are happy to be able to offer this opportunity and are excited to hear about the cutting-edge research from the next generation of HAB scientists!

NHC Co-Chair

Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Integrative Biology

ARE ALGAL BLOOMS GETTING WORSE?

Severe algal blooms threaten ecosystem and human health, resulting in billions of dollars in economic loss. The interaction between eutrophication and climate change is hypothesized to be driving widespread intensification of blooms in inland waters, although little work has been done to evaluate this hypothesis. In this talk, I will present recent research exploring trends in algal bloom magnitude and severity from hundreds of lakes across the United States and the conditions that are driving these trends. We found that bloom intensification in inland waterbodies, defined as increasing trends in chlorophyll-a of increasing bloom magnitude, severity, or duration, has not been widespread for hundreds of lakes in the United States. Only 10.8% of the 323 waterbodies analyzed had significant bloom intensification. Conversely, 16.4% of the waterbodies had significant decreasing trends during the same period. Interestingly, the interaction of between severe precipitation and trophic state of a lake was indicative of a waterbody's bloom trajectory. While it is encouraging that bloom intensification isn't currently widespread, continued efforts towards aquatic ecosystem protection and restoration are imperative for maintaining ecosystem services into the future.

Bio: Dr. Grace Wilkinson is a limnologist and ecosystem ecologist with a research focus on aquatic-terrestrial linkages. Her research interests are at the intersection of nutrient cycling, water quality, and ecosystem resilience. In 2021, she started as an assistant professor in the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Prior to that time, she was an assistant professor at Iowa State University.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission-Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWC-FWRI)

ADVANCING OBSERVATION NETWORKS IN SUPPORT OF HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOM (HAB) FORECASTING FROM POLAR TO SUB-TROPICAL SYSTEMS

Persistent and recurring harmful algal blooms (HABs) negatively impact human, ecosystem, and economic health. Accurate bloom tracking and forecasting can provide resource managers, health departments, and the public with timely information to inform decision-making. This requires several key components: 1) a sustainable, multiparameter, regional HAB observation network that is highly leveraged, 2) geographically and temporally rich historical observations; 3) integration of new observing datastreams; and 4) development and advancement of targeted forecasting capabilities. State-of-the-art observing technology has proven to be critical in timely data collection during bloom events and, moreover, for revealing phenomena that might otherwise be overlooked, such as the importance of diel changes in Karenia brevis and Pseudo-nitzschia species transitions across environmental gradients. At the same time, repeated and sustained sampling is critical for building time series that can be used to inform and validate predictive models. Implementing a multi-partner (and thus highly leveraged) and innovative network helps ensure that in situ observations of cells and toxins occur routinely throughout the year capturing key bloom stages and shifts in the physical and chemical environment. This would advance bloom forecasting, recognizing that abiotic and biotic factors such as nutrients, trace metals, and cell physiology are important parameters to include. Recognizing the ecological flexibility displayed by many HABsin lab and field studies, examples will be provided that demonstrate how expanding observational and modeling infrastructure is essential for forecasting and hindcasting the response of HABs to environmental changes occurring across event to multi-decadal time scales, with a focus on polar, temperate, and sub-tropical systems. Also critical to our success in building these comprehensive networks is the ability to communicate scientific results to broad audiences and to creatively span gaps among research, monitoring, and management communities.

Bio: Dr. Kate Hubbard leads the HAB monitoring and research program for the FWC-FWRI. As a research scientist, she works closely with a broad network of partners to sustain and advance comprehensive HAB monitoring. Her expertise in genomics and ecology has also helped evaluate drivers of HABs and other species. Recent enhancements to Florida's HAB monitoring network under her direction have focused on new, enhanced, and/or sustained biological, chemical, and physical observation capabilities. As a Co-Investigator of the NSF/NIEHS-funded Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Hubbard is involved in HAB detection and forecasting projects across the US to better understand and predict blooms and their impacts and is committed to working at the interface of HAB research and management. She also prioritizes engaging junior scientists in research and communication. She received her B.A. in Biology from New College of Florida and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Biological Oceanography from the University of Washington. She has served on the National HAB Committee since 2017.

Department of Marine Sciences, University of Connecticut & National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS AND OCEAN ACIDIFICATION: DEFINING A RESEARCH AGENDA

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) and ocean acidification (OA) are threats to marine ecosystems and human communities. HABs and OA have common drivers in coastal areas and often co-occur in space and time. Although many studies have provided insight into HAB dynamics, only a few of these have included OA. Similarly, OA studies have examined biogeochemistry and impacts to marine resources and have started to expand into multi-stressor studies, but less is known about the influences of HAB-OA interactions and cascading impacts to coastal ecosystems and economies. The NOAA Ocean Acidification Program (OAP) and National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) Competitive Research Program (CRP) held a virtual workshop to identify research needs at the intersection of HABs and OA. This presentation will focus on the regional and national grand challenges, research priorities, and research products highlighted at the workshop. Research areas of high priority at the national level include modeling for prediction, attribution, and sensitivity testing; leveraging monitoring assets to measure HAB and OA parameters simultaneously; data management to foster integration; data product development; and enhanced communication and outreach efforts. Importantly, the workshop identified a need for increased collaboration between HAB and OA scientists. Interdisciplinary approaches will be required to disentangle the complexities of HAB-OA interactions and address stakeholder needs. This effort will be facilitated by the NOAA OAP and NCCOS CRP through the development of a community of practice and a federal funding opportunity.

Bio: Halle Berger is a 2021 Sea Grant Knauss Marine Policy Fellow serving as a Coastal Stressors Program Coordinator with the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program and National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science Competitive Research Program. She is working on building a research community to address the overlapping challenges between harmful algal blooms and ocean acidification. Halle is also currently a PhD Student at the University of Connecticut. Her research assesses the vulnerability of important shellfisheries to changing ocean conditions.

Plenary Session will be followed by a Q&A panel with Halle and NOAA Program Managers Quay Dortch, Maggie Broadwater and Erica Ombres.