Program

Program

The 2025 International Seaweed Symposium (ISS25) Committee will begin accepting abstract proposals on a variety of applied phycology themes starting on May 5, 2024. Proposed themes are, but may not be limited, to:

Applications
  • Bioactives and human health
  • Biofuels
  • Biostimulants
  • Cosmetics
  • Extraction and purification
  • Feed ingredients
  • Functional foods
  • New applications of phycocolloids
  • Rare Earth minerals
  • Seaweeds as biofilters
  • Seaweeds as feed
  • Seaweeds and wastewater treatment
  • Seaweed extracts in agriculture
Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Solutions
  • Carbon uptake and allocation
  • Climate-driven changes in seaweed distribution/biogeography
  • Genomics and breeding to enhance e.g. thermal tolerance
  • Mechanisms of acclimation and adaptation to global change
  • Multiple drivers of change
  • Physiological and molecular responses to global change
  • Refugia from climate change
Ecology
  • Chemical ecology
  • Ecotoxicology
  • Fertilization and dispersal
  • Introduced seaweeds
  • Local environmental change (e.g. eutrophication, pollution)
  • Macroalgal blooms (green tides, Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt etc)
  • Microbiome/Holobiome
  • Ocean acidification
  • Pathogens/disease in natural and farmed systems
  • Population and community ecology
  • Restoration
  • Seaweed-herbivore interactions
Gastronomy
  • Best practices to expand seaweed in gastronomy
  • Seaweed as a source of natural flavours in innovative foods
  • Seaweed acceptance and introduction into food habits
  • Seaweed in food cuisines around the world
  • Showcasing seaweed in markets and restaurants
Indigenous Knowledge
  • Indigenous knowledge
  • Traditional uses of seaweed
  • Seaweed in Indigenous art
  • Seaweed in Indigenous gastronomy 
  • Seaweed cultivation, harvesting and aquaculture
  • Seaweed monitoring, management and stewardship
Seaweed Aquaculture
  • Breeding, elite strain development, and seedstock production
  • Diversity of seaweeds in Canada
  • Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture (IMTA)
  • Impacts of aquaculture on natural seaweed populations/ invasive species
  • Major farmed seaweeds
  • Offshore, open ocean and land-based culture
  • Storage, processing and biorefinery
  • Sustainable harvesting of wild populations
Regulatory Frameworks for Industry and Restoration
  • Area-based management, governance and socio-economics
  • Balancing industrial development with ecosystem protection in regulations
  • Carbon accounting and forensics
  • Canada’s mosaic of seaweed regulations
  • Environmental regulation of reproduction
  • Permitting practices - the good, the bad, the ugly
  • Seaweed regulations for carbon dioxide removal
  • Seaweed standards & regulations
  • Wild harvest regulations
Taxonomy, Diversity and Evolution
  • Seed banks to protect seaweed diversity
  • 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

The 2025 International Seaweed Symposium (ISS25) Committee will begin accepting abstract proposals on a variety of applied phycology topics starting on May 5, 2024. Proposed topics are, but may not be limited, to:

Applications
  • Bioactives and human health
  • Biofuels
  • Biostimulants
  • Cosmetics
  • Extraction and purification
  • Feed ingredients
  • Functional foods
  • New applications of phycocolloids
  • Rare Earth minerals
  • Seaweeds as biofilters
  • Seaweeds as feed
  • Seaweeds and wastewater treatment
  • Seaweed extracts in agriculture
Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Solutions
  • Carbon uptake and allocation
  • Climate-driven changes in seaweed distribution/biogeography
  • Genomics and breeding to enhance e.g. thermal tolerance
  • Mechanisms of acclimation and adaptation to global change
  • Multiple drivers of change
  • Physiological and molecular responses to global change
  • Refugia from climate change
Ecology
  • Chemical ecology
  • Ecotoxicology
  • Fertilization and dispersal
  • Introduced seaweeds
  • Local environmental change (e.g. eutrophication, pollution)
  • Macroalgal blooms (green tides, Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt etc)
  • Microbiome/Holobiome
  • Ocean acidification
  • Pathogens/disease in natural and farmed systems
  • Population and community ecology
  • Restoration
  • Seaweed-herbivore interactions
Gastronomy
  • Best practices to expand seaweed in gastronomy
  • Seaweed as a source of natural flavours in innovative foods
  • Seaweed acceptance and introduction into food habits
  • Seaweed in food cuisines around the world
  • Showcasing seaweed in markets and restaurants
Aquaculture
  • Breeding, elite strain development, and seedstock production
  • Diversity of seaweeds in Canada
  • Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture (IMTA)
  • Impacts of aquaculture on natural seaweed populations/ invasive species
  • Major farmed seaweeds
  • Offshore, open ocean and land-based culture
  • Storage, processing and biorefinery
  • Sustainable harvesting of wild populations
Regulatory Frameworks for Industry and Restoration
  • Area-based management, governance and socio-economics
  • Balancing industrial development with ecosystem protection in regulations
  • Carbon accounting and forensics
  • Canada’s mosaic of seaweed regulations
  • Environmental regulation of reproduction
  • Permitting practices - the good, the bad, the ugly
  • Seaweed regulations for carbon dioxide removal
  • Seaweed standards & regulations
Taxonomy, diversity and evolution
  • Seed banks to protect seaweed diversity
  • 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