Abstract
One of the problems of the coastal areas in an international scale is the increasing impact of the Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), traditionally known as ?red tides?. The aim of my proposal is to develop a reliable system for bloom prediction and control which will be directly used by three partner groups: the Swedish monitorig program (SMHI), sea food industry associations (Svensk skaldjursodling producentorganisation) and the National Food Administration (Livsmedelsverket). My project offers an innovative perspective of the HAB problematic that can be summarized in one sentence: knowledge on how the life cycle of toxic algae is regulated allows both predicting and controlling bloom events. Sexual stages in toxic microalgae are not possible to differentiate in routinely monitoring, meaning that no country in the world is nowadays able of reporting any information on their location or concentration in the water. This data is however essential because sexual zygotes are responsible for the formation of resistant cyst deposits on the sea bottom, a source of recurrent bloom events. For this reason, I will characterize molecularly the sexual stages to implement a model able to forecast the location and magnitude of following toxic events. Additionally, I propose to use the discovered genes to isolate pheromone-like substances, which I will use to develop a mitigation method based on the control of the blooming population size.
Sweden