Events

Application deadline for Malte Elbrächter's course in Taxonomy of Recent Dinoflagellates, November 1-9, 2010. See webpage for details.

Hello everyone,
Mary Silver and I will be chairing a session at the ASLO 2011 Aquatic Sciences Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico on the presence of algal toxins in aquatic food webs. Please see the announcement below. We know there are many wonderful related researches that have been going on and we really would like to see your contribution to this session and have a chance to get together to share and discuss new findings. When you submit your abstract, please make sure to sign to the session number below.
Hope to see you there,
Best - Sibel Bargu

S63: Broadening the Discussion: The consequences of the presence of algal toxins in aquatic food webs
Conveners: Sibel Bargu, Louisiana State University, sbargu@lsu.edu and Mary Silver, University of California, Santa Cruz, msilver@ucsc.edu
The consequences of an increased presence of phycotoxins in aquatic systems are relatively poorly known on scales other than those of acute, short-term exposures of individual animals or populations. Other consequences could include, for example, sub lethal effects on individuals that lead to impaired immune systems, reductions in fitness, and to exodus of vulnerable, mobile species from communities. On longer time scales, the structure of communities likely would change with increasing toxin exposure, including to dominance of tolerant species, as well as reductions in overall animal diversity. Chronic versus sporadic exposures to phycotoxins also could lead to different outcomes for individual species and communities. Additionally, reduction in grazing on toxic phytoplankton could result in enhanced phytodetritus levels and reduction of secondary and tertiary production relative to primary production. Our goal for this session is to provide a forum to broaden the discussion of the consequences of an increasing presence of toxin-producing algae in aquatic communities, including topics that historically have been a focus of terrestrial ecologists. These include a range of subjects from individual fitness to plant-herbivore interactions to broader community-level changes, and include short-term to evolutionary-scale consequences of the likely-increasing presence of toxic algae in aquatic systems.

Sibel Bargu
Assistant Professor

Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences,
School of the Coast and Environment,
1235 Energy, Coast & Environment Building,
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803

E-mail: sbargu@lsu.edu
Tel: 225-578-0029
Fax: 225-578-6326

St. Cloud State University and the Science Museum of Minnesota are pleased to be the host institutions for the 21st International Diatom Symposium (IDS). The IDS is held biannually and returns to North America for the first time since 2002 and to the United States for the first time since 1990. The first symposium was held in 1970 in Bremerhaven, Germany and has moved around the world under the supervision of the International Society for Diatom Research. The meeting attracts hundreds interested in all aspects of diatom sciences. The meeting has a collegial atmosphere and provides opportunity to network and socialize.

Abstracts to ASPAB 2010, Rottnest Island, Australia are du August 30. See ASPAB website for more information.