Eutwork

A workshop on: Contrasting approaches to understanding eutrophication effects on phytoplankton - 11-13th March 2002

Please note that the Participant List (Excel 20KB) has been updated to reflect all the attendees.

Co-sponsors:

• National Institute for Coastal and Marine Management (RIKZ), Den Haag, The Netherlands
• Cefas, Lowestoft Laboratory, Lowestoft, UK
• ICES Working Group on Phytoplankton Ecology (WGPE)

In association with:

Was held at:

RIKZ
Kortenaerkade 1
PO Box 20907
2500 EX Den Haag
The Netherlands

Contrasting approaches to understanding eutrophication effects on phytoplankton

Co-chairmen: Peter Bot, David Mills, Lars Edler, Ted Smayda

The ICES Working Group on Phytoplankton Ecology (WGPE) at its annual meeting, held in March 2001 in Bergen, Norway, recommended to ICES that a workshop be convened to consider the impacts of nutrient enrichment of coastal waters and inland seas on phytoplankton behaviour and accompanying trophic responses. The approaches taken to evaluate the effects of eutrophication on phytoplankton dynamics traditionally focus on biomass (usually chlorophyll) and primary production to the neglect of species succession and bloom responses, energy flow and food (prey) quality. The ICES WGPE identified this neglected aspect of nutrient loading effects on phytoplankton community behaviour, i.e. the organismal approach, as a topic of major relevance to the unresolved debate over the impacts of coastal eutrophication on phytoplankton processes.

ICES recently approved the convening of this Workshop, to be held on 11-13 March, 2002, in den Haag, The Netherlands. The primary Workshop aim will be to evaluate the mass balance vs. organismic approaches to quantify phytoplankton responses to coastal nutrient enrichment. In this evaluation, observational and experimental studies, both field and laboratory, are of interest, including regional ecology, population dynamics, cellular nutrient physiology and modelling. The following Workshop objectives are to:

• identify the range of responses of phytoplankton communities to nutrient enrichment,
• evaluate the relative importance of cellular, population and community level responses to nutrient inputs,
• improve predictions of phytoplankton responses to nutrient inputs.

Plenary consensus of Workshop participants will be sought with regard to the current status of, and types of investigative studies needed to quantify eutrophication impacts on phytoplankton dynamics. The consensus arrived at will be formalised in a manuscript co-authored by Workshop participants for publication in Ambio, Marine Pollution Bulletin, or other journal. It will also be forwarded to ICES for its use. We are also exploring publication of the Workshop presentations in a peer reviewed journal.

Following the Workshop, the ICES Working Group on Phytoplankton Ecology will have its annual meeting on 14-16 March also in Den Haag, The Netherlands. Workshop participants are welcome to join the meeting as observers.

Brief summary of outcome and future plans

The ICES Workshop on New Perspectives in Understanding and Predicting Eutrophication (WKNUPE) convened in Den Haag on 11-13 March was successfully accomplished. In attendance were 43 delegates from 15 countries who presented 33 papers. Informed presentations and spirited interdisciplinary discussions took place. The Workshop is the first known assembly of biologists, chemists, modellers and representatives of regulatory agencies ever gathered to focus on the important issues of the nature of coastal water eutrophication and its role in altering ecosystem processes, particularly at the plankton level. Both the material presented and the professional channels that were newly opened up should henceforth greatly facilitate the missions of social scientists and regulatory agencies in their need to incorporate "hard science" into their efforts and, in reciprocal fashion, the Workshop helped to "sensitise" marine scientists to the needs of social scientists. A dialogue has been established. One measure of the success of the Workshop is that the participants greed to publication of the Workshop presentations in a dedicated volume to appear in the Journal of Sea Research, with an editorial board already selected.

Eutwork Programme with abstracts of the talks can be found here.

Editorial Board

Ted Smayda tsmayda@gso.uri.edu
Paul Harrison harrison@ust.hk
David Mills d.k.mills@cefas.co.uk
Peter Bot p.v.m.bot@rikz.rws.minvenw.nl