Sessions

Theme 1: Applied and Industry
1a. Phycolloids and Bioactives
  • New applications of phycocolloids
  • Cosmetics
  • Biostimulants
  • Feed ingredients
  • Bioactives and human health
  • Seaweed extracts in agriculture
  • Functional foods
  • Seaweed standards & regulations incl QA and QC
  • Extraction and purification
  • ‘Intellectual property’
  • Other topic not listed above
1b. Applications
  • Asparagopsis (and other seaweeds) & ruminants
  • Seaweeds as animal feed
  • Seaweeds as fish/crustacean etc feed ingredient
  • Seaweeds and wastewater treatment
  • Seaweeds as biofilters
  • Other topic not listed above
1c. Seaweed farming, harvesting and downstream processing
  • Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture (IMTA)
  • Offshore, open ocean and land-based culture
  • Impacts of aquaculture on natural seaweed populations/ invasive species
  • Sustainable harvesting of wild populations
  • Area-based management, governance and socio-economics
  • Breeding, elite strain development, and seedstock production
  • Storage, processing and biorefinery
  • Major farmed seaweeds including Kappaphycus, Pyropia/Porphyra, Gracilaria, Hypnea, Asparagopsis, Sargassum, Laminarian kelps
  • Pathogens and disease
  • Biofuels
  • Other topic not listed above
Theme 2: Ecology
  • Population and community ecology
  • Indigenous knowledge
  • Introduced seaweeds
  • Macroalgal blooms (green tides, Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt etc)
  • Restoration Ecology
  • Microbiome/Holobiome
  • Seaweed-herbivore interactions
  • Pathogens/disease in natural and farmed systems
  • Chemical ecology including allelopathy
  • Fertilization and dispersal
  • Other topic not listed above
Theme 3: Ocean Change and Climate Mitigation
  • Blue carbon and carbon sequestration
  • Climate-driven changes in seaweed distribution/biogeography
  • Physiological and molecular responses to global change
  • Mechanisms of acclimation and adaptation to global change
  • Genomics and breeding to enhance e.g. thermal tolerance
  • Refugia from climate change
  • Ocean acidification
  • Temperature
  • Multiple drivers of change – interactions between local and global drivers (e.g. warming, acidification, eutrophication, pollution)
  • Ecotoxicology
  • Local environmental change (e.g. eutrophication, pollution)
  • Other topic not listed above
Theme 4: Physiology and 'Omics'
  • Photosynthesis/efficient light use
  • Nutrient acquisition
  • Environmental regulation of reproduction
  • Salinity and temperature tolerance
  • Carbon uptake and allocation
  • Molecular mechanisms underpinning physiological responses to environmental stress
  • Other topic not listed above
Theme 5: Taxonomy, Diversity and Evolution
  • Developing ‘seed banks’ to protect seaweed diversity in vulnerable systems
  • Coralline algae
  • Biogeography
  • Ancestral character state reconstruction from multi-gene phylogenies; evolution of novelties in seaweeds
  • Phylogenomics of the seaweeds, and the evolution of organelles
  • The diversity and physiological challenges of cryptic seaweed species
  • Diversity of seaweeds in ancient Gondwana: the connections in the southern hemisphere
  • Other topic not listed above