Toxins produced by recurrent and intense marine harmful algal blooms (HABs) are threatening the nutritional, cultural, and economic well-being of coastal communities throughout western and northern Alaska. This project was co-developed with Alaska coastal communities to identify specific marine food resources of concern and determine the extent to which food safety and security may be impacted by HAB toxins.
Why We Care
There is clear evidence that HAB toxins are present in Arctic and subarctic food webs at levels of significant concern, and that the scale of the problem has expanded in recent years with ocean warming. Alaska coastal communities comprehensively use marine resources for subsistence, including shellfish, invertebrates, fishes, marine mammals, and seabirds and eggs. HAB risks include human illness and death from consumption of diverse subsistence seafoods and health impacts to marine wildlife that may impact food security.
What We Are Doing
This five-year competitive financial assistance award was co-developed with Arctic/subarctic coastal communities to evaluate the risk of HAB toxins in key subsistence resources in a regional study area extending from the eastern Bering Sea northward through the Bering Strait to the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.
This project aims to:
- Identify subsistence food resources used by western and northern Alaskan coastal communities that may accumulate HAB toxins;
- Establish real-time HAB observations at key sites to provide early warning of HAB events;
- Study toxin uptake and depuration rates and tissue distribution in key subsistence species to assess risks to food safety and security;
- Identify health impacts of toxin exposure in marine mammals harvested for subsistence;
- Develop and evaluate models that predict toxin concentrations above seafood regulatory limits in subsistence marine resources; and
- Make project findings and results broadly available to Arctic and subarctic coastal communities that rely on marine subsistence resources.
Benefits of Our Work
This project will identify marine food resources of concern and quantify the extent to which they may be impacted by HAB toxins to address how HAB toxins threaten the safety and security of Arctic/subarctic subsistence seafood resources, and validate shore and ship-based HAB observing for real time Alexandrium detection to provide early warning of food safety and wildlife conservation risks.
The research team consists of experts in all aspects of HAB ecology, physiology and toxicity, wildlife health, subsistence harvest practices, toxin analyses, public health, risk communication, and management of Alaskan natural resources. Don Anderson of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Kathi Lefebvre of NOAA’s Northwest Science Center co-lead this project. Other principal investigators include Mike Brosnahan of WHOI; Patrick Charapata of the Georgia Aquarium; Lauren Divine of the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island; Thomas Farrugia of the Alaska Ocean Observing System; Kathleen Hunt of George Mason University; Steve Kibler of NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science; Emma Pate of the Nome Eskimo Community; Gay Sheffield of the University of Alaska Fairbanks – Alaska Sea Grant; Elizabeth Siddon of NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center; Raphaela Stimmelmayr of the North Slope Borough; and Chris Whitehead of Ocean and Earth Environmental Services.
Resolutions indicating support for this project were provided by 14 federally recognized Tribal governments from the Bering Strait and Chukchi Sea regions including Native Village of Diomede, Nome Eskimo Community, Native Village of Council, Native Village of Elim, Native Village of Gambell, Native Village of Savoonga, Native Village of Brevig Mission, Native Village of Shaktoolik, Native Village of Solomon, Native Village of Stebbins, Native Village of St. Mary’s Igloo, Native Village of White Mountain, Native Village of Unalakleet, and Native Village of Golovin.
The project is funded through the NCCOS Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB) Program and authorized under the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act (33 U.S.C. §§ 4001 et seq.), which authorizes NOAA to detect and monitor harmful algae.