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VAWS – Underwater Storms: How harmful algal blooms form and their impacts on Alaska’s oceans
March 4 @ 11:00 am to 12:00 pm AKST
Speaker: Dr. Thomas Farrugia, Scientific Program Manager, AOOS, Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network Coordinator
About the webinar: Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) in Alaska can produce toxins that move through the marine food web and make certain food items dangerous to consume. For many coastal communities that rely on wild harvested marine foods – such as shellfish, fish, seabirds, and marine mammals – HABs present a threat to food security. In addition, we are learning that this threat is likely to increase in the future and is an emergent threat in Arctic communities. This presentation will go through how HABs form in Alaskan waters, the conditions that are conducive to HAB formation, how HABs are currently being monitored and researched, and what more needs to be done to better mitigate this threat. We will also discuss how recent and predicted future changes in the oceans could affect the distribution, intensity, and species composition of HABs in Alaska.
Bio: Thomas is a marine ecologist who joined the Alaska Ocean Observing System in 2020 as the first Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom (AHAB) Network Coordinator. After a B.S. in Biology at McGill University, he spent a year as a fisheries observer in the Bering Sea, where he developed an affinity for Alaska and its waters. He obtained his M.S. in Marine Biology at California State University Long Beach, before returning to Alaska for his Ph.D. in Fisheries at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He then worked as a stock assessment scientist for the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic and as a white shark researcher for the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Thomas is very excited to be back in Alaska coordinating the awareness, monitoring, research, and response to HABs – a crucial issue impacting public health, food safety and security, and wildlife populations.