Arctic climate change has a range of consequences, including ocean warming, sea-ice melt, and increased runoff from ice sheets and glaciers. These changes have a significant impact on Arctic marine ecosystems, including alterations in species distribution, the displacement of prey-predator relationships, and changes in the timing and physiology of life cycle events across all trophic levels. As a result, they directly impact the food systems of northern communities – where seafood is a pillar of culture, identity and health – by making harvesting activities more unpredictable, and leading to changes in sustenance or economic resource availability.
As the Arctic region warms, phytoplankton blooms are increasing in duration and magnitude. While most species are harmless, some diatoms and dinoflagellates produce potent neurotoxins that can accumulate in the food web and become poisonous or even lethal to humans and marine mammals. Although these toxicity events are expected to become more prevalent with climate change, our understanding of where, how, and when they will occur and the potential impact on food security and economic activities is very limited.
PHATE will gather experts and communities from six countries working across the natural sciences, environmental and public health, archeology, social anthropology, and cultural studies as well as local and Indigenous knowledge and perspectives. The ultimate goal of PHATE is to provide comprehensive risk assessments and adaptation tools that account for the large-scale oceanic processes, the ecological connectivity of the region, and also local and cultural contexts of Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), Nunatsiavut, Nunavik, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland.
To achieve reliable predictions and enhance the resilience of local communities, we propose a multi-faceted approach to obtain a regional overview of past and recent toxicity events and their impacts on ecosystem and human health from remote sensing, field samples, bioarcheological evidence, marine sedimentary DNA, local and indigenous narratives and written records. We will assess the risk of marine phycotoxins in the Arctic as a climate-driven environmental and health stressor and a challenge towards sustainability, and co-develop new tools that can aid monitoring and strategic planning of sustainable practices and policies for the conservation, harvesting and consumption of marine resources under a changing climate.
