Sensors for Monitoring Harmful Algae, Cyanobacteria and Their Toxins

14 necessarily correlate with toxin concentrations; different mussel species can exhibit different accumulation/depuration rates; large accumulations of cells can be harmful even if toxins are absent; cell/toxin thresholds may be different in marine versus freshwater systems, and this latter issue can be compounded by places like the San Francisco estuary where both marine and freshwater species can mix. 6) Management needs can be difficult to address with currently available technologies/platforms, since approval and adoption can be disjointed across the states. There is often a need/benefit for multiple parameter measurements (species abundance, toxin, supporting environmental data – chlorophyll, temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen) that can dovetail with early warning at the species level. Continuous observations are important to integrate over large time scales and go hand-in-hand to inform the treatment/mitigation process. Networked platforms are highly favorable, leveraging broader spatial and temporal data acquisition. For example, toxin-only detection systems lack the ability of an agency to track cells in the water column as they lead up to a HAB event. To achieve the goal of networking current technologies, we need better inter-calibration between devices and applications. Furthermore, increased mobility is a high priority in some cases, as moored platforms can limit instrumentation use, particularly when they need to be manually moved to another location (including to depth). This can severely limit sampling coverage. 7) Lack of shared databases, regulatory frameworks and requirements can hinder smooth transition into adoption of technologies. Rules and laws can address needs and lead to financing for development and adoption. 8) Stakeholders (e.g., managers) often do not have the time or desire to sift through raw data produced by HA monitoring technologies. They want researchers to do this for them and then provide distilled and usable data for management. In some cases, researchers are able to provide usable information (e.g. binned estimates of cell/toxin concentrations, colored images for interpretation), but there is room for improvement. Further, interpretation and QC need to be easy to understand and comparable. Time to actionable results is not often ideal for making a management decision. 9) While regulatory limits are in place for tissue burdens of many HA toxins, there is no direct translation of these into alert levels for environmental toxin loads (particulate, dissolved, cell abundance) that can provide stakeholders early warning of HA impacts on ecosystems and public health. Related to this, how long should detection capabilities remain in place throughout a bloom event? • Q3: What surveillance needs are not being met? 1) The need to integrate physiological information to better inform models was discussed. It would help stakeholders if they had a wider picture of the ecological drivers that preceded blooms in addition to simple ‘alert levels’. We need to understand what causes an organism to escalate to alert concentrations or toxin production.