Various international investigations on this phenomenon were published in the prestigious scientific journal Progress in Oceanography.
Seeking to explain how the presence of Harmful Algae Blooms, also known by its acronym HABs, can generate various negative effects in the marine ecosystems of the southern part of Chile, a group of researchers published a special volume in the prestigious scientific journal Progress in Oceanography.
The initiative was led by José Luis Iriarte, researcher at the Center for Dynamic Research of High Latitude Marine Ecosystems (IDEAL) and academic at the Aquaculture Institute of the Austral University of Chile (UACh), together with Gemita Pizarro, researcher at the Institute of Fisheries Promotion (IFOP), and Máximo Frangópulos, researcher at the GAIA Antarctic Research Center of the University of Magallanes (UMAG).
According to José Luis Iriarte, this publication emerged as a result of the PROFAN oceanographic campaign, financed by ANID and executed together with the Chilean Navy. “It was a multidisciplinary investigation on the topic of Harmful Algal Blooms in the central region of Magallanes. Researchers from various institutions obtained novel results for understanding harmful blooms in the Patagonian ecosystem,” he explained.
In this sense, the scientists highlight that the proposal for this special volume was to integrate new information on this phenomenon that is very little understood at a global level and on a regional scale.
“In this volume we integrate studies of the physical and chemical factors that could favor these events, the observation of toxins in the inland sea, ecological interactions with other organisms, taxonomic knowledge of potentially toxic species, the distribution of dinoflagellate cysts in sediments and the current vision under a climate change scenario,” explained José Luis Iriarte.
Regarding the results contained in this research, the team explains that these range from the registration of new toxins in Chilean Patagonia, the knowledge of new species of potentially toxic diatoms and dinoflagellate cysts, new chemical factors that favor the growth of harmful species.
In turn, the IDEAL Center researcher highlights that “in this special volume you can explore the oceanographic characteristics, in physical, chemical and biological terms, and the complexity of the fjord system due to the interaction with its geomorphology, hydrology and atmospheric processes.”
To learn more about this research, check out the special volume here.