Aotearoa/New Zealand Japan
collaboration strengthened through
HAB research at Cawthron Institute
the 16th Young Researchers Award
from the Japanese Society of Phycology
for his research on harmful algae in Japan.
Acknowledgements
The collaboration between New Zealand and Japan has been continued
and strengthened since Dr Tomohiro
Nishimura (Fig. 1) has been working
at Cawthron Institute, Nelson, New
Zealand. He arrived in 2018 on a two
year Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science (JSPS) Overseas Research Fellowship. During that time, Tomohiros
research focused on the diversity of,
and diarrhetic shellfish toxin production by, the benthic dinoflagellate genus
Prorocentrum in some regions of Oceania [13]. He also reported the first instance of DTX1 production for multiple
New Zealand P. lima complex strains [T.
Nishimura, unpublished data]. Several
new records of benthic Prorocentrum
species and other benthic/planktonic
dinoflagellate genera/species were also
recorded during that research period [T.
Nishimura, unpublished data] and will
be added to the New Zealand checklists
of benthic and planktonic dinoflagellates [4,5]. He was also involved in other
HAB research, relating to New Zealand
or Japan, published between 2018 and
2020 [614].
Cawthron Institute then offered a
scholarship for a further two years, beginning in April 2020. Despite the difficulties encountered during COVID-19
lockdowns, Tomohiro focused on the
amnesic shellfish poisoning toxin producing planktonic diatom genus Pseudonitzschia and cultured more than 100
isolates from New Zealands coastal waters for investigating species diversity
and toxin production. The presence of
fourteen species, several of which were
new records for New Zealands coastal
waters were confirmed. Preliminary
toxin analyses suggested that multiple
strains of these newly reported species
did not produce domoic acid and epidomoic acid [15]. The results from this
research were presented to the New
Zealand seafood industry and regulatory representatives at the Seafood
Advisory Group meeting, held by the
Cawthron Institute in Nelson in December 2020. The upside of the research
was that the new species
reported did not alter
the current monitoring
regime and may even allow for some relaxing of
the risk alerts for some
Pseudo-nitzschia species.
A further project has
recently been funded
through the Catalyst:
Seeding New Zealand
- Japan Joint Research
Project Programme, collaborating with Kochi
University, Japan. This
will lead to the mapping
of the predicted distribution of toxic benthic
microalgae given the
forecasted global warming of Japans and New
Zealands coastal waters.
In 2020 Tomohiro
was awarded the 19th
Young
Investigators
Award
from
the PlankFig. 1. Tomohiro Nishimura, sampling at Te Uenga Bay,
ton Society of Japan and
Northland, New Zealand, 2019
HARMFUL ALGAE NEWS NO. 67 / 2021
The technical help of Lucy Thompson
and Jacqui Stuart was appreciated. Diarrhetic shellfish toxin and amnesic
shellfish poisoning toxin analyses were
carried out by J. Sam Murray, Joshua
Fitzgerald and Michael J. Boundy. The
research was partly supported by the
NZ government-funded Seafood Safety
programme (Contract No. CAWX1080).
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Authors
Lesley L Rhodes & Kirsty F Smith
Cawthron Institute, 98 Halifax Street East,
PB 2, Nelson, New Zealand
Email corresponding author:
Lesley.rhodes@cawthron.org.nz
21
Harmful Algae News An IOC Newsletter on Toxic Algae and Algal Blooms No. 67 - April 2021 www.ioc-unesco.org/hab SHIOHIGARI and PSP toxins in Japan: Initiatives to save traditional recreatio nal clam picking Shiohigari has been enjoyed by people in Japan for centuries, as depicted in the Japanese a
Fig. 2 Clamming parks in Osaka Prefecture (Modified from a digital map of The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan) ingly, they had developed the exchange system to secure viability of their operations before 2002 when PST exceeding the regulatory limit were first detected in clams from seas a
Fig. 4 System of exchanging clams which secure food safety at Tannowa clamming park (Modified from [3} of visitors to clamming parks has now recovered. This is a success story of how to mitigate socio-economic impact on recreational clamming in Osaka prefecture due to PST. Thanks to the initiatives
HABs and the Mixoplankton Paradigm Mixotrophs are defined as organisms that are able to use photo-autotrophy and phagotrophy or osmotrophy to obtain organic nutrients [1]. It is notable that all phototrophic protists are potentially mixotrophic if only through expression of osmotrophy enabled by the
Fig. 2. Indication of proportion of IOC-UNESCO HAB species [6] assigned to each of the HAB plankton functional groups according to key in Fig.1 compiled by cross-reference to a database on mixoplankton species. CM, constitutive mixoplankton; pSNCM, plastidic specialist non-constitutive mixoplankton;
Fig. 3. Schematics and model simulation outputs run under the traditional paradigm (left) versus the mixoplankton paradigm (right). See text for explanation. B bacteria; Phyto phytoplankton (non-phagotrophic phototroph); μZ protozooplankton; CM constitutive mixoplankton (photophago-trophic); DIM
Tiny cells with a big impact: An unexpected bloom in the mid-Atlantic Fig. 1. a) Bongo nets fouled with the brown mucilaginous plankton. b) Dark and gelatinous content of the plankton nets scraped into a sample tray. Since 1992, the US NOAA Ecosystem Monitoring (EcoMon) cruises survey the Northeas
Fig. 3. Scanning electron micrographs of frustules in valve view of Thalassiosira mala. Note the single eccentric strutted process (black arrow), the ring of marginal strutted processes (arrowheads) and the single labiate process (white arrow) located within the ring of marginal strutted processes s
Acknowledgements We are grateful to Kyle Turner for helpful discussions regarding the fall 2018 EcoMon cruise and to Dr. Irene Andreu for SEM assistance. Dr. Paul E. Hargraves provided some insights on diatom taxonomy. We acknowledge the dedication of the crew of the R/V Sharp during a particularly
First report of an Ansanella granifera bloom in Cuban waters, Caribbean region Fig. 1. Map of the study area showing the location where the dinoflagellate bloom o ccurred in southeastern Cuba. Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) have been associated with fish and shellfish kills, ecosystem damage, human
Fig. 3. Light microscopy images of fixed cells of Ansanella granifera. 4). Ansanella granifera is a dinoflagellate belonging to the family Suessiaceae (order Suessiales) that was recently described from Korea [5]. To our knowledge, the occurrence in waters from southeastern Cuba represents the firs
Dolichospermum spiroides blooms in a man-made lake in Sarawak, Borneo pond in Serian, Sarawak, and co-existed with a Microcystis bloom. However, the species and cell density for both genera were not recorded [3]. This is the first documented report of D. spiroides in Sarawak waters. The occurrence
An online platform (GEE App) for Trophic State Index monitoring of inland waters in Latin America Fig. 1. a) The dark gray region shows the Paraná River Basin in Brazil; b) Water masses within Paraná River Basin palette according to the Chl-a concentration average for 2020. The red rectangle indica
Remote sensing of recurrent cyano HABs in Patos Lagoon, Brazil Fig. 1. Map of Patos Lagoon (southernmost part of Brazil) taken from [7]. Black circles indicate the four sites chosen forNDCI values retrieval [4]. Every austral summer, dense surface growth and accumulations of cyanobacteria threaten
ation promoting the prevalence and duration of cyanoHABs. More detailed information will be published soon adding modeling tools to locate dominant cyanoHAB accumulation sites within the PL, and their potential exportation to the ocean. Future studies are needed to discriminate between local effects
Blooms of Akashiwo sanguinea (Dinophyceae) in a tropical estuary in northeastern Brazil We report an inter-annual bloom of the unarmored dinoflagellate Akashiwo sanguinea in a pristine estuary (Figure 1F) in Brazil. The estuarine section of the Serinhaém River, Camamu Bay is a species-rich ecosystem
can affect the entire structure of a community due to changes in composition due to outcomes of biotic interactions with one species being benefited while another one is harmed. The spatial location of SE10 within an area of potential disturbance driven by urban tributaries alters ecological stoichi
Can artisan fishermen help to prevent HABs intoxication? A science communi cation project in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Fig. 1. Geographic distribution of the main harmful microalgae genera in Brazilian coastal waters. These genera may induce different poisoning syndromes: amnesic shellfish poisoning (
Authors Raquel AF Neves, Júlia Torres, Nathália Rodrigues & Clarissa Naveira, Graduate Program in Neotropical Biodiversity (PPGBIO), Research Group in Experimental and Applied Aquatic Ecology, Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), Avenida Pasteur 458-307 Rio de Janeiro- RJ, CEP
The VIII Workshop the Group HarmAlfonso Vidal (Colombia). Their of dediconsider it urgent to finalize The VIIIofWorkshop of the Group Harmful Algal Blooms the Caribbean (ANCA) of a regional ful AlgalIOCARIBE Blooms of (Intergovernmental the Caribbean catedOceanographic work contributedCommission sig
Aotearoa/New Zealand Japan collaboration strengthened through HAB research at Cawthron Institute the 16th Young Researchers Award from the Japanese Society of Phycology for his research on harmful algae in Japan. Acknowledgements The collaboration between New Zealand and Japan has been continued
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