Harmful Algal Blooms in Marine Environments: From Biologically Active Compounds to Species Diversity

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are a recurrent phenomenon that threaten marine ecosystems in relation to water quality being highly impacted by anthropogenic activities and climate change, which are relevant topics to understand under the UN 2030 Sustainable Goals. Anthropogenic pressures in coastal waters have high impact on water safety, namely if they are used for bathing purposes, tourism or sports activities. Climate change events such as heat waves may carry a negative impact on ecosystems' safety that is necessary to report and unravel due to the several social and economic activities that marine habitats currently undertake. Species diversity, invasive species as well as the report of new or previously characterized biologically active compounds produced under HABs conditions or isolated from a single species are topics that are necessary to describe. In biologically active compounds, both toxic or of natural origin, are imperative to unravel in marine environments. In these, their report and characterized activity are contemplated topics for water safety and human health purposes. Risk assessment strategies particularly describing accidental uptake or contact routes of toxic molecules are relevant topics if epidemiological data is necessary to become publicly available in order to improve water management and risk management. HABs occurrence, report of biologically active compounds and species description are mostly welcomed topics. Surveillance, report and influence of HABs under current anthropogenic pressures and global climate conditions are imperative topics to foster their mitigation, improve water safety namely in coastal waters and assess new possible trends in species occurrence and distribution along with their potential to produce any type of biologically active compound.

This Research Topic welcomes studies on:
· HABs in marine environments along with the description of the species diversity and of their related biologically active compounds
· description of nova genera and species in marine habitats
· Studies applying taxonomy, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, proteomics, metagenomics, meteorology, technology, phylogeny and microbiological methodologies or the application of other sciences on the studies of HABs are welcomed.

Article types include original research, methods, perspective, opinion, mini-review, review and brief research report.