The 19th International Conference on Harmful Algae 2021 (ICHA2021) is going virtual! We appreciate the responses that many of you provided in the recent survey which indicated that >85% of respondents will participate in a virtual meeting. The abstract submission deadline is 9 April 2021. Details on abstract submission can be found here. The International Society for the Study of Harmful Algae (ISSHA) Council is busy preparing the meeting with the local steering committee and is excited to announce that we will provide options for live participation in several time zones. We ask for your patience as we continue to update the conference website. The meeting will feature: 1. Pre-recorded presentations 2. Live Q&A sessions with oral presenters 3. Interactive poster sessions 4. Exciting side sessions on Early Warning Systems, Fish Farming, New HAB Technologies, and more! 5. Opportunities for informal discussion and coffee breaks 6. Online fun (inter)activities! I am sure you will be pleased to see the greatly reduced registration rates for the virtual conference found here. Please register by 11 June 2021 to enjoy the early bird rates of 100 USD (student, retired, Yasumoto awardee, Lifetime achievement awardee), 200 USD (regular participant). You also have an option to register as a full participant to help support a student or a colleague from an under-represented nation. nation forms that can be found on the website here. The nominator and the nominee both need to be current ISSHA members. Nominations should include a description of the nominees contribution (not more than one page). Please, make sure that you and your nominee have renewed your membership for the period 2020-2021. Nominations for the 2021 Yasumoto Lifetime Achievement Award and the Patrick Gentien Young Scientist Award should be sent by e-mail to Dr. Marta Estrada (marta@icm.csic.es), Chair of the Committee on Achievement Awards. Deadline: May 15, 2021. Please write ISSHA Achievement Awards 2021 in the message subject. Nominations will be considered by the ISSHA Council, and eventual awards will be presented at the virtual 19th ICHA Conference, October 11-15, 2021. La Paz, B.C.S. Mexico. Student Registration Fee Award for ICHA 2021 Mexico In order to encourage student participants and young investigators to participate in our biennial conference, ISSHA is glad to announce student registration fee awards to cover Please also provide your nomina- tions for the 2021 Yasumoto Lifetime Achievement Award and the Patrick Gentien Young Scientist Award (both nominator and nominee need to be current ISSHA members) ISSHA members are invited to submit nominations for the Yasumoto Lifetime Achievement Award and the Patrick Gentien Young Scientist Award. The nominator and the nominee both need to be current ISSHA members. Further information on the appropriate profile of the nominees can be found here. Any ISSHA member in good standing may submit nominations for either achievement award, using the nomiHARMFUL ALGAE NEWS NO. 67 / 2021 1 october 1O-15 www.icha2021.com registration fee for ICHA2021 Mexico. Selection criteria Membership of ISSHA (If you are not a member, please join the society prior to the submitting of your application; 1. application of non-member will not be considered). 2. Quality or nature of science of the paper to be presented in an oral or a poster presentation. Students who are first authors will be given higher priority for funding. 3. Priority will be given to first time applicants and from least developed or developing nations over award recipients of the past ICHA conferences. Please indicate your wish to apply for the Student Registration Fee Award during the registration, and submit your application letter as an e-mail attachment to Dr Po Teen LIM, Email: poteenlim@gmail.com, Chair of Student Travel Award Committee. The letter should contain the following information: 1. Name, address, telephone, FAX, email 2. Institutional affiliation and educational status 3. Name(s) of advisor(s) 4. Research interest (please use keywords) 5. Activity at HAB 2021: poster or oral presentation 6. Copy of the abstract Please state ISSHA Student Registration Fee Awards 2021 in the subject of your e-mail. Applications not submitted correctly may be rejected. The deadline for receipt of applications will be 15th May 2021. Applications will be reviewed by the ISSHA Travel Award Committee and classified according to merits presented. Decisions will be announced by 1 June 2021. More details will be provided soon on conference side sessions, the schedule to accommodate different time zones, and the popular auction. Please check the ICHA2021 website frequently for updates. Please take some time to submit your abstract and nominate your colleague for an award. Vera Trainer (ISSHA President) 23 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 ANNOUNCEMENT: The International Phytoplankton Intercalibration The International Phytoplankton Intercalibration (IPI) Proficiency Testing scheme in abundance and composition of marine microalgae programme 2021 is now open for registration for 2021 through www.iphyi.org. The schedule for 2021 and all The 19th International Conference on Harmful Algae 2021 (ICHA2021) is going virtual! We appreciate the responses that many of you provided in the recent survey which indicated that 85% of respondents will participate in a virtual meeting. The abstract submission deadline is 9 April 2021. Details on In memoriam Maria Esther Angélica Meave del Castillo (1960-2020) María Esther Meave (who also received the nickname Teté or Tey by many of her friends) was born in Mexico city, Mexico (September 5th, 1960) and passed away on December 6th, 2020, after contracting COVID-19. She earned her Master and Leif Bolding, graphic designer and webmaster at the Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, has been an unsung hero of Harmful Algae News. Working behind the scenes since 2000 as responsible for the layout of each issue. Leif retires at the end of April 2021. He will have plenty of