Climate Change and Shellfish Safety: ACRC and Sitka Tribe of Alaska Tackle Emerging Challenges with New Grant
ACRC researcher John Harley and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska have received a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate how changing climate conditions may impact the safety of subsistence shellfish harvesting in coastal Alaska. This five-year grant will support ongoing toxin monitoring efforts and fund new research to understand how harmful algal blooms (HABs) will be impacted by a changing climate.
HABs produce the toxins responsible for paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), which accumulate in subsistence shellfish species. For nearly a decade, the Southeast Alaska Tribal Ocean Research (SEATOR) network has monitored toxin levels in shellfish and monitored ocean water for the toxin producing phytoplankton, providing vital data for communities that rely on marine resources. This new funding will allow SEATOR to continue its monitoring program while launching new research to forecast safe harvesting seasons.
The research at UAS will explore climate-driven changes in HAB timing and ocean acidification effects on HAB toxicity. Harley is particularly interested in whether the bloom window could extend into seasons where this region traditionally doesn’t see HABs (winter and early spring), which are common times to harvest shellfish. “While we don’t have a very long dataset, we haven’t seen significant HABs activity in winter months in most communities in Alaska,” Harley explains. “But with changing environmental conditions, that may no longer hold true. Research from Puget Sound in Washington, for example, seems to indicate that the magnitude and season of PSP events is expanding. We’ll be using climate models and environmental data to predict how the timing of HABs in Alaska might shift in the future.”
Harley will collaborate with ACRC’s new postdoctoral researcher, Esther Kennedy, who helped establish SEATOR’s monitoring program while working as an Environmental Scientist for the Sitka Tribe of Alaska. Together, their research aims to inform communities, enabling them to adapt to emerging challenges and ensure continued food security for Southeast Alaska’s subsistence shellfish harvesters.
The abstract for the first year of Harley’s project can be viewed here.