Download Interim Report of the ICES - IOC Working Group on Harmful Algal

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ICES WGHABD REPORT 2016
Executive summary
The ICES - IOC Working Group on Harmful Algal Bloom Dynamics met in Brest, France,
19–22 April 2016. The meeting was hosted by Raffaele Siano from IFREMER. Sixteen
members from eleven countries attended with a further two contributing by correspondence. A total of eleven ToRs were addressed as well as updates from other organisations
such as Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC) Intergovernmental Panel on HABs (IP-HAB) and Scientific Committee on Oceanographic Research
(SCOR) GlobalHAB steering committee. A presentation was also made on behalf of scientists from PICES about the exceptional Pseudo-nitzschia bloom observed along the east
coast of the Pacific during 2015.
Members presented national reports on HABs during 2015 (ToR a). Algal toxins continue
to cause problems throughout the ICES area with shellfish closures enforced in a number
of regions as a result of concentrations of paralytic, lipophilic and amnesic shellfish toxins
exceeding the permissible limit. Brown tides and the organisms responsible for neurotoxic shellfish poisoning were observed in the U.S.A, the palytoxin producers Ostreopsis was
observed in some areas in Spain and cyanobacterial scums were observed in the Baltic.
ToR (d) provided an update on methodology and trigger levels for toxic phytoplankton
monitoring from the EU National Reference Laboratory for Marine Biotoxins. ToR (e)
new findings included presentations on mercury in phytoplankton in Poland, monitoring
algal toxins in Scotland, Ostreopsis in Spain and the first reports of Tetrodotoxin (TTX) in
shellfish from the Netherlands. Tor (h) provided a summary of the ICES-PICES-IOC
climate change and HABs symposium in Gothenburg in May 2015. This symposium was
attended by 60 scientists. A major review article about climate change and HABs arising
from this symposium was published in Harmful Algae in 2015; Wells, M.L., Trainer, V.L.,
Smayda, T.J., Karlson, B.S.O., Trick, C.G., Kudela, R.M., Ishikawa, A., Bernard, S., Wulff,
A., Anderson, D.M., Cochlan, W.P. (2015), ‘Harmful algal blooms and climate change:
Learning from the past and present to forecast the future.’ Harmful Algae, 49, 68–93. ToR
(i) presented experiences using molecular methods such as qPCR to identify HAB species. ToR (k) addresses the physical and chemical control of different HAB species. This
year focussed on the dynamics of Alexandrium minutum in the Bay of Brest, France. Molecular methods applied to sediment cores provided information to improve understanding of blooms in this region. ToRs (g) and (l) updated the status of the OSPAR/JAMP
Phytoplankton monitoring guidelines reviewed by the WG last year.
Three ToRs contribute towards the work of the IOC IP-HAB. ToR (b), a manuscript on
fish killing algae is in the final stages of production and will be submitted for peer review
before the end of 2016. WG members continue to update the ICES-PICES-IOC Harmful
Algal Event database (HAE-DAT) as part of ToR (c). ToR (f) addressed the production of
a HAB status report which will act as the ICES contribution towards a Global HAB Status
Report (GHSR) that is currently being produced as a joint effort by the IOC, ICES, PICES,
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and International Society for the Study of
Harmful Algae (ISSHA) to document global occurrences and changes in HABs. This report will summarise the data in HAE-DAT to produce a status report of harmful algal
events in the ICES area.