Wednesday September 30, 2026
Maven’s Notebook—
A team of marine scientists led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has unlocked a novel approach to predicting harmful algal blooms (HABs), fundamentally shifting how oceanographers track these hazardous marine events.
In a study publishing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers demonstrated that passively measuring chemical “alarm cues” produced by microscopic ocean predators—a group of polar lipids known as copepodamides—allows scientists to forecast toxic algal blooms up to seven weeks in advance. This “top-down” biological monitoring technique extends predictive lead time by more than a month compared to conventional toxin-tracking methods, giving coastal agencies and shellfish fisheries critical advance warning before toxins reach dangerous levels.
For decades, ocean-forecast models have focused almost exclusively on “bottom-up” physical and environmental drivers, such as ocean currents, water temperature, and nutrient upwelling, according to the study’s senior author, Distinguished Ocean Sciences Professor Raphael Kudela.
“By capturing the chemical signals of biological predators, we’ve opened up a vital top-down window into ecosystem dynamics,” Kudela said. “By ‘listening’ to chemical interactions between marine grazers and algae, we can add a new and reliable monitoring technique to our early-warning toolbox.”