Urgent action is required to create resilient and forward-looking solutions for the early detection and effective management of harmful algal blooms (HABs). These blooms pose a significant threat to both society and the environment, necessitating a proactive approach to limit their detrimental socio-ecological consequences by gaining deeper insights into their origins and triggering factors. As our planet experiences global warming, changes in rainfall patterns, and an escalation in nutrient pollution, coupled with the continued growth of the aquaculture industry, the intensification and broader geographic spread of HABs become increasingly likely due to the synergistic effects of all these factors. Consequently, we must take swift and comprehensive measures to address these issues to safeguard our biodiversity and the well-being of our communities. Although considerable efforts have been devoted to the monitoring and prediction of HABs, it has been difficult to tackle without the knowledge of the HAB holobiont dynamics that shape the bloom. The overall aim of HALOBISE is to provide high-quality knowledge from the HAB holobiont framework to increase the predictive capacities of aquatic monitoring programs, and to tackle the biological and sociological complexity of HABs to implement instruments for governance that improves their management capabilities to mitigate the impact of HABs on ecosystem services (ES) in the context of multiple pressures in a changing environment. The objectives are: i) advancing in the understanding of the HAB holobiont to address the HAB drivers, and dynamics; ii) Mitigate the impact of HABs by predicting the adverse effects of phycotoxins on species supporting ES; iii) in collaboration with management authorities and policymakers, co-create a prototype platform to improve valuation, mapping, assessment, and mitigation of impacts of HAB in ES.; and iv) engage stakeholders to integrate their knowledge, interest, and needs to mitigate the impact of HAB in ES through participatory workshops on both local and European levels. Partners at HALOBISE are interdisciplinary leaders in plankton, population and chemical ecology, dynamic modelling, environmental microbiology, phytoplankton, and harmful algal blooms, environmental proteomics and metaproteomics, and intradisciplinary members from HAB monitoring programs. We can fill together the knowledge gaps that are hampering our capability for early detection of HABs and prediction of HABs impacts in on ES. HALOBISE will address this problem offering new tools to understand the drivers of HABs and to improve HAB prediction and management. The taxonomical and functional metaproteomics analysis of HAB holobionts, co-culture experiments, and adverse outcome prediction in environmental species will offer data to assess the predictive capability. Outcomes from this proposal will lead to the inclusion of holobiont data in the next generation HAB monitoring programs. We will include in this translational proposal the dialogue with non-scientific stakeholders and share the resulting predictive approach. We are expected to get these groups (fisheries and shellfish aquaculture) involved in testing, facilitating the integration of their knowledge on the damage of HAB on ES and adding their experience to produce policy briefs. Finally, the pilot platform will assess the effects of multiple pressures on the HAB holobiont, and the ES impact under a more efficient approach to decision-making. We will promote the harmonization of the different stakeholders and needs and their approaches to implementing ES management. Introducing new methods and tools that improve the prediction of HABs and their impacts in ES, is how innovation could respond to the multiple pressures in a changing environment. By safeguarding our water bodies´ ES, the proposal will contribute to more sustainable management of aquaculture fisheries sectors as well as increased water security.

Photo by Yolanda Pazos.