Session List

Please see the session formats page for details on possible presentation formats.

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Scientific Sessions

SS01 Ecological Significance of Dissolved Organic Matter: From Molecules to Ecosystems (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Jianjun Wang, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences ([email protected])
Erika Freeman, Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries ([email protected])
Nico Mitschke, University of Oldenburg ([email protected])

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is one of the largest and most dynamic pools of organic carbon in aquatic ecosystems. It regulates microbial metabolism, nutrient cycling, food-web interactions, light availability, contaminant transport, and carbon storage from inland waters to the ocean. Despite major advances in ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry, molecular biology, and ecosystem modeling, we still lack a general understanding of how DOM composition, reactivity, and ecological function vary across aquatic systems and environmental gradients. This session will bring together studies that examine how DOM is produced, transformed, transported, and preserved across lakes, rivers, wetlands, estuaries, coastal waters, and the open oceans. We welcome contributions that connect DOM chemistry and reactivity with microbial communities, biogeochemical processes, ecosystem functioning, and environmental change. Key questions include: How does DOM composition vary across spatial and temporal gradients? What controls the production, transformation, and persistence of DOM? How do microbial, photochemical, hydrological, and climatic processes regulate DOM dynamics? How does DOM influence carbon cycling, greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient availability, and ecosystem responses to disturbance? How can new analytical, experimental, and modeling approaches improve prediction of DOM fate under global change? The session aims to bridge molecular-level insights into DOM with broader ecological and biogeochemical processes. We encourage submissions based on observational, experimental, comparative, and modeling approaches, including studies that integrate optical properties, molecular composition, isotopes, microbial ecology, metagenomics, biogeochemical measurements, or ecosystem-scale analyses. Contributions from diverse aquatic environments and from researchers at all career stages are welcome.

Keywords: Dissolved organic matter, Chemodiversity, Metabolomics, Ecosystem function, Global change

SS02 Shifting Feedbacks and Long-Term Change in Aquatic Ecosystems (ORAL, POST)

Grace Wilkinson, University of Wisconsin - Madison ([email protected])
Hilary Dugan, University of Wisconsin - Madison ([email protected])

What determines whether aquatic ecosystems absorb disturbance and recover, or instead undergo rapid transformation? A key part of the answer lies in feedback loops: circular chains of interaction that emerge among the physical, chemical, and biological components of ecosystems. Feedback loops are fundamental to understanding long-term change because they determine whether disturbances are dampened, stabilizing ecosystem dynamics, or amplified, increasing variability and potentially driving abrupt transitions to alternative states.

In aquatic ecosystems, external forcings such as climate change, land-use intensification, altered hydrology, species invasions, and management interventions are modifying the timing, magnitude, and routing of energy and material inputs. At the same time, internal processes are shifting, including changes in stratification, nutrient transformations, sediment–water exchange, primary production, and species interactions and adaptations. Together, these changes can add, remove, or alter the strength of ecological interactions and processes, effectively "rewiring" aquatic ecosystems. This rewiring can create, weaken, strengthen, or reverse feedback loops, with profound consequences for ecosystem resilience, trajectories of change, and the delivery of ecosystem services across inland, coastal, and marine systems.

This special session invites contributions that explore shifting feedbacks within and among the physical, chemical, and biological components of aquatic ecosystems, how their sign and strength are changing, and the consequences for ecosystem dynamics and services. We welcome observational, experimental, theoretical, and modeling studies from freshwater, estuarine, and marine systems that advance understanding of how changing feedbacks shape ecosystem trajectories in an increasingly dynamic world. By synthesizing perspectives across aquatic systems and levels of organization, this session aims to advance a mechanistic understanding of how ecological rewiring drives long-term change and informs efforts to anticipate and direct future ecosystem responses.

Keywords: ecological feedbacks, resilience, disturbance, recovery,

SS03 From Mountains to the Sea and Everything In Between: Nutrients and Organic Matter Cycling in Tropical Aquatic Ecosystems (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Bianca Rodríguez-Cardona, International Institute of Tropical Forestry ([email protected])
Nicolas Finkler, SLU ([email protected])
Virginia Mosquera Salles, SLU ([email protected])
Vanessa Solano Rivera, UQAM-GRIL ([email protected])

Tropical aquatic ecosystems are often rich in organic matter and play a critical role in global carbon cycling as well as hotspots of nutrient cycling. They are sites of major transport and transformations of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and organic matter (OM) along the aquatic continuum, from mountains to the ocean or other receiving water bodies. However, important knowledge gaps remain regarding the connections between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, the mechanisms governing the transport and transformation of OM, N and P, and the implications of these processes for regional carbon and nutrient cycling and greenhouse gas emissions.

This session invites contributions exploring the transport, transformation, and fate of N, P, and organic matter, in their different forms in aquatic ecosystems such as headwater streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, coastal regions and beyond. We also welcome studies that elucidate terrestrial-aquatic linkages and their influence on nutrient and carbon cycling. Topics covering organic matter composition, sources, patterns and dynamics of bioavailability, fluxes, photochemical and microbial degradation, and the impact of these processes in local and regional carbon budgets, nutrient cycling, nutrient uptake, stoichiometry amongst others are welcome.

We recognize that many presenters working in tropical regions may face the economic burdens or visa issues that prevent their participation at the ASLO meeting. In these cases, we invite participants to submit their abstracts to the Amplifying Voices session where they can present pre-recorded talks. They will be advertised during our session to maximize viewership.

Keywords: Tropica, Organic matter, Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorous

SS04 Using OJAI for Interdisciplinary Aquatic Solutions (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Janelle Layton, Oregon State University ([email protected])
Tiara Moore, Black in Marine Science (BIMS) ([email protected])

As aquatic systems face increasingly complex challenges, from climate change and biodiversity loss to environmental injustice and resource management, traditional approaches are no longer sufficient. Addressing these issues requires real time collaboration across disciplines, integrating knowledge from aquatic sciences, social sciences, oceanography, limnology, biology, ecology, and beyond. Artificial Intelligence tools like Ocean Justice AI (OJAI) have emerged as a powerful tool at this intersection, transforming how we collect, visualize, and mobilize knowledge to drive meaningful change.

This session will include examples of how AI tools are currently being used across fields, as well as an interactive discussion inviting participants to reflect on their own work. How are you currently integrating interdisciplinary approaches in your research or practice? What challenges do you face in connecting data, people, and impact? And how might a tool like OJAI support your efforts to move from research to action?

AI tools like OJAI are being used to bridge disciplines and translate data into action. OJAI is a dynamic, map-based system that allows users to document research, projects, community initiatives, and lived experiences in a shared, visual space. By layering scientific data with storytelling and community knowledge, OJAI enables users to see connections across regions, ecosystems, and social contexts that are often overlooked in traditional research frameworks. A key feature of OJAI is the ability to create and share "movements" or interactive story maps that bring together data, narratives, and multimedia to showcase impact. These movements allow researchers, students, and practitioners to document their work in real time, connect with others working on similar challenges, and contribute to a growing, global network of knowledge. By visualizing these efforts collectively, OJAI helps identify gaps, opportunities for collaboration, and scalable solutions across disciplines and geographies.

By the end of the session, participants will gain a deeper understanding of how AI platforms can support more equitable, inclusive, and effective aquatic science solutions. More importantly, they will be invited to consider their role in contributing to and shaping these platforms leveraging technology not just to analyze the world, but to actively change it.

Keywords: AI, Ocean Justice, Mapping, Community, Interdisciplinary

SS05 Ecosystems Under Pressure: Cumulative and Emerging Human Activities from Coastal Seas to the Deep Ocean (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Paola Batta-Lona, University of Connecticut ([email protected])
Ivaldo Fumo, Early Career Ocean Professionals in Mozambique ([email protected])
James J. Pierson, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science ([email protected])
Peter Teye, Africa Ocean Alliance ([email protected])
Bryce Dubois, University of New Haven ([email protected])

Aquatic ecosystems are increasingly exposed to multiple, interacting human activities that operate across spatial and temporal scales. Offshore energy development, commercial fisheries, shipping, dredging, aquaculture, seabed mining and extraction, coastal development, pollution, and climate change increasingly overlap in space and time, creating complex cumulative pressures on marine ecosystems. Together, these stressors can modify hydrodynamics, stratification, sediment transport, habitat structure, species distributions, trophic interactions, biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and the delivery of ecosystem services. As coastal and offshore waters become more intensively used and environmental change accelerates, there is an urgent need for interdisciplinary science that integrates oceanography, ecology, fisheries, technology, and management to better understand ecosystem responses relative to natural variability and support sustainable decision-making.

This session invites contributions examining the cumulative effects of human activities on aquatic ecosystems across coastal, shelf, offshore, and deep-ocean environments. We particularly welcome studies that link physical, biological, ecological, and socio-environmental processes to improve understanding of ecosystem responses and inform ecosystem-based management. Contributions may draw upon field observations, long-term monitoring programs, laboratory and mesocosm experiments, remote sensing, autonomous observing systems, numerical modelling, artificial intelligence, synthesis studies, and other emerging approaches for assessing ecosystem change.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, ecosystem responses to offshore infrastructure and maritime activities; cumulative impacts of climate change, pollution, fisheries, aquaculture, dredging, seabed disturbance, shipping, and resource extraction; alterations to circulation, mixing, and sediment dynamics; habitat degradation and biodiversity change; impacts on plankton, benthic communities, fishes, marine mammals, seabirds, and food webs; ecosystem resilience and recovery; ecological responses to underwater noise, artificial light, vessel traffic, and other emerging stressors; and the role of natural oceanographic variability in mediating responses.

We particularly encourage interdisciplinary contributions that integrate across trophic levels, spatial scales, and sectors, from local process-based studies to regional and basin-scale ecosystem assessments. Studies addressing cumulative impact assessment, baseline characterization, contextual natural variability, ecological indicators, monitoring frameworks, decision-support tools, marine spatial planning, ecosystem restoration, nature-based solutions, environmental governance, and transferable methodologies are especially welcome. Comparative analyses across ecosystems, regions, and management contexts—including contributions from underrepresented regions and developing nations—are encouraged to broaden understanding of shared challenges and effective solutions.

Keywords: Cumulative impacts, Ecosystem-based management, Marine spatial planning, Multiple stressors, Biodiversity change

SS06 Interacting Ocean Stressors and Their Compound Impacts on Marine Ecosystems (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Ming Li, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science ([email protected])
Kimberly Puglise, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science ([email protected])
Brendan Turley, University of Miami and NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center ([email protected])
Wei-Jun Cai, University of Delaware ([email protected])
Patricia Glibert, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science ([email protected])

Marine ecosystems are increasingly influenced by multiple interacting environmental stressors, including ocean warming, hypoxia, ocean acidification (OA), and harmful algal blooms (HABs). These stressors rarely occur in isolation; instead, they co-occur across spatial and temporal scales, producing compound and cascading effects on marine organisms, food webs, and ecosystem services. Importantly, the combined impacts of multiple stressors are often nonlinear, with synergistic or antagonistic interactions that can amplify ecological responses, alter ecosystem resilience, and generate outcomes that are difficult to predict from single-stressor studies alone. Coastal oceans and estuaries are particularly vulnerable because large-scale oceanographic and climate variability is often superimposed on local anthropogenic pressures such as eutrophication and human development.

Recent advances in laboratory experiments, field observations, machine learning and numerical modeling are improving our ability to understand and predict how stressors interact with each other and influence marine ecosystems. However, major challenges remain in quantifying nonlinear interactions among stressors, identifying ecological thresholds and tipping points, and translating scientific understanding into effective ecosystem and fisheries management strategies.

This session will bring together researchers from diverse disciplines to examine the mechanisms, dynamics, and ecological consequences of multiple interacting stressors in marine and coastal environments. We welcome contributions spanning field observations including observing systems and remote sensing, laboratory and mesocosm experiments, mechanistic physical-biogeochemical-ecological modeling, statistical and machine learning approaches, and ecological forecasting for ecosystem and fishery management. Topics may include compound stressors, HAB dynamics, hypoxia and deoxygenation, warming and OA impacts on food webs and fisheries, ecosystem resilience, and emerging approaches for prediction and management.

Keywords: multi-stressors, ecosystem impacts, hypoxia, acidification, harmful algal blooms

SS07 From Species to Ecosystems: Spatiotemporal Perspectives on Aquatic Plankton Community and Functional Diversity Under Changing Environmental Conditions (ORAL, POST)

Heather Wander, Université du Québec à Montréal - GRIL ([email protected])
Rosaura J. Chapina, University of Vermont ([email protected])
Anna Schmidt, University of Vermont ([email protected])
Katalin Patonai, Université de Montréal ([email protected])

Plankton form the foundation of aquatic food webs and are key drivers of ecosystem functioning. Plankton communities are highly diverse, encompassing phytoplankton, zooplankton, bacteria, heterotrophic protists, and other microbial constituents. As primary producers, consumers, and decomposers, these organisms collectively regulate nutrient cycling, energy transfer, and ecosystem productivity across trophic levels, making them both sentinels of environmental change and important indicators of ecosystem state. Yet understanding how plankton communities respond to accelerating climate change requires perspectives that span organizational levels, from individual traits to whole-ecosystem dynamics, and that integrate variation across space and time.

Climate change is reshaping thermal regimes, stratification dynamics, and phenological timing in cascading, often non-linear ways. Shifts in species composition, functional group dominance, and trait distributions have been widely documented across diverse aquatic ecosystems. However, our ability to detect and predict these changes is challenged because it requires integration of diverse datasets, including long-term monitoring, broad spatial surveys, and frameworks that connect taxonomic and functional diversity.

This session focuses on the intersection of Plankton community ecology and functional diversity to advance our understanding of how freshwater and marine ecosystems respond to climate change across spatial and temporal scales. We particularly welcome contributions that span taxonomic groups or that leverage long-term monitoring records and multi-system comparative datasets. Studies that integrate functional trait approaches to move beyond species-level descriptions toward a mechanistic understanding of community responses are especially encouraged. Contributions from students and early-career researchers (ECRs), as well as researchers from the Global South, are especially welcome.

Together, this session aims to foster dialogue across methodological and taxonomic boundaries, connecting researchers working on different components of the plankton community who share an interest in how biodiversity and function respond to a changing climate. By linking community composition to functional outcomes across scales, we hope to identify common patterns, highlight emergent research priorities, and build toward a more unified framework for understanding plankton-mediated ecosystem responses in lakes and oceans under climate change.

Keywords: plankton ecology, functional diversity, climate change, long-term monitoring, spatial surveys

SS08 Hidden Eukaryotic Drivers of Aquatic Change: Protists, Fungi, and Planktonic Interactions from Genes to Ecosystems (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Xuefeng (Nick) Peng, University of South Carolina ([email protected])
Natalie Cohen, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, University of Georgia ([email protected])
Bryndan Durham, University of Florida ([email protected])
Harriet Alexander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ([email protected])

Microbial eukaryotes (microeukaryotes) are central yet often underrecognized drivers of aquatic ecosystem function. Across marine and freshwater systems, protists, fungi, and other planktonic eukaryotes regulate primary production, nutrient recycling, carbon export, and mediate trophic transfer. Microeukaryotes play diverse ecological roles, including as primary producers, grazers, parasites, saprotrophs, symbionts, and chemically responsive participants in aquatic food webs. Despite their ecological importance, many of these organisms remain poorly represented in cultures, reference databases, models, and long-term observing programs.

This session will highlight new approaches for resolving the ecological roles and diversity of aquatic microeukaryotes. We invite contributions that use omics, imaging, stable-isotope approaches, experimental ecology, trait-based modeling, field observations, and synthesis across datasets to understand how protists and fungi shape aquatic ecosystems. Topics may include microeukaryote contributions to carbon fixation and export, fungal and protistan roles in organic matter degradation, parasitism and grazing as top-down controls on phytoplankton, mixotrophy and trophic flexibility, metabolite-mediated interactions, symbioses, bloom formation and collapse, and responses to warming, stratification, acidification, deoxygenation, nutrient shifts, and anthropogenic perturbations. Emphasis will be placed on linking molecular and organismal processes to ecosystem-scale consequences, including biogeochemical cycling, aquatic food-web structure, and ecosystem resilience under global change.

Keywords: microbial eukaryotes, protists, aquatic fungi, plankton interactions, multiomics

SS09 Small Scale Spatial and Temporal Patterns in Particles, Plankton, and Other Organisms (ORAL, POST)

Aditya Nayak, Florida Atlantic University ([email protected])
Houshuo Jiang, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ([email protected])
Malcolm McFarland, Florida Atlantic University ([email protected])

It has long been known that the myriads of particles/organisms in the aquatic environment are not homogeneously distributed; in fact, strongly localized patches are more often the norm. This 'patchiness' in distribution can manifest itself in either horizontal or vertical directions and occur over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Examples include algal blooms, 'thin layers' of phytoplankton and zooplankton, and schools of krill and fish. This patchiness is driven by a complex set of factors including, but not limited to, ocean mixing/advection at various scales, stratification, nutrients, and light. Patchiness can have significant consequences to aquatic ecosystem function, affecting emergent patterns of biological productivity, biogeochemical cycling, predator-prey interactions, and community dynamics. Technological advances over the past decade, including reduced computational costs and novel instrumentation, have led to increased research efforts in this area. This session aims to draw researchers working to better understand small scale 'patchiness' in particles and/or organisms across spatial scales ranging from a few mm to several km, and over temporal scales ranging from a few seconds to several days, using theoretical, numerical, and/or laboratory/field-based efforts.

Keywords: Plankton patchiness, Algal blooms, Thin layers, Animal-fluid interactions,

SS10 The Color of Plankton (ORAL, POST)

Rocio Rodriguez-Perez, Arizona State University ([email protected])
Nick Baetge, Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences - Arizona State University ([email protected])
Sasha Kramer, Boston University ([email protected])
Leocadio Blanco-Bercial, Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences - Arizona State University ([email protected])

Color is one of the most distinctive and informative characteristics of plankton. Photosynthetic pigments, including green, brown, yellow, red, and blue compounds, drive autotrophic carbon fixation and shape the optical signatures of phytoplankton communities. Surface-dwelling zooplankton are often blue pigmented to blend with the surrounding water, while lipids, carotenoids, and other metabolites can give planktonic organisms vivid red, orange, or black colorations. At the same time, many planktons rely on transparency to avoid visual predators, through anatomical, biochemical, and optical adaptations that minimize light absorption and scattering. Plankton also adapts to the optical properties of their environment by matching background colors or evolving photoreceptors tuned to dominant wavelengths. Beyond their ecological and evolutionary significance, the optical properties of plankton have become powerful windows into aquatic ecosystems. Advances in satellite and airborne remote sensing, multi- and hyperspectral observations, imaging systems, in situ optical instrumentation, and laboratory analyses increasingly allow us to quantify plankton identity, abundance, biomass, physiology, behavior, trophic interactions, and contributions to biogeochemical cycles. These approaches are transforming our ability to observe plankton across scales, from individual cells to ocean basins. This session invites contributions exploring the color and optical properties of plankton across all levels of biological organization, from prokaryotes to nekton. We welcome field, laboratory, imaging, experimental, modeling, and remote-sensing studies that investigate how pigmentation, transparency, reflectance, fluorescence, and other optical traits shape plankton ecology, physiology, evolution, or biogeochemical roles, among others. We also encourage studies that leverage these traits as tools for observing, understanding, and predicting ecosystem dynamics.

Keywords: Plankton color, Optics, Remote Sensing, Ecology, Biogeochemistry

SS11 Environmental Impacts of Deep-Sea Mining (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Yang Xiang, Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University ([email protected])
Jessica Fitzsimmons, Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University ([email protected])
Maria Figueroa, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, USGS ([email protected])

Deep-sea waterscapes are under increasing anthropogenic pressure. Governments and companies have focused attention on the potential of seabed minerals to provide metals considered essential for a low-carbon future. To date, no commercial mining of seabed minerals has occurred. However, over 30 exploration contracts exist in national and international waters, and several collection system tests have occurred for polymetallic nodules and sulfides. These tests have generated important new data across a range of environmental conditions, from benthic habitat characterization to benthic and midwater sediment plume chemical concentrations and transport models.

This session directly addresses the "Waterscapes Under Pressure" theme by synthesizing the current scientific understanding of direct and indirect environmental impacts of deep-sea mining (DSM) operations, identifying critical knowledge gaps and research challenges, and defining future research priorities. We invite laboratory, field, and modeling studies that address the interdisciplinary biological, chemical, physical, and ecological impacts of DSM operations throughout the water column. We aim to highlight the growing collection of baseline oceanographic datasets and experimental work. We also welcome solution-based science that informs environmental management frameworks, monitoring strategies, and the development of effective regulatory policy for potential future DSM.

Keywords: Deep-sea mining, Environmental impacts, Sediment plumes, Benthic ecosystems, Midwater ecosystems

SS12 Microbial Dimensions of Marine Disease in Waterscapes Under Pressure (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Michael Henson, Northern Illinois University ([email protected])
Ian Hewson, Cornell Universit ([email protected])

Marine diseases are increasingly recognized as major ecological and evolutionary forces that shape host populations, community structure, biogeochemical cycling, and ecosystem resilience. Diseases have significant impacts on the ecology and evolution of marine organisms, affecting ecosystem structure and function. Many diseases are driven by microorganisms (e.g., viruses, bacteria, unicellular and metazoan eukaryotes) that elicit pathology in their hosts, and drive habitat-level sequelae of their morbidity and mortality. At the same time, biological oceanographic and biogeochemical phenomena both affect and are affected by marine diseases through parasite proliferation, virulence, and host diagenesis. Yet marine disease is still often studied in isolation from the microbial and biogeochemical processes that govern its emergence, spread, and ecosystem consequences. This disconnect limits our ability to identify disease agents, predict when disease outbreaks will occur, and determine how they will alter marine food webs, nutrient cycling, and ecosystem resilience. This session will bring together researchers studying the microbial biology, ecology, evolution, and physiology of marine disease across scales, from host-pathogen interactions to ecosystem-level consequences. We invite contributions on microorganisms that directly cause disease, microbiome-mediated resistance or susceptibility, viral and parasitic dynamics, microbial recycling of disease-derived organic matter, and the environmental conditions that promote or suppress disease outbreaks. We also welcome studies using histopathology, experimental infection systems, field surveys, long-term monitoring, -omics, cultivation, and modeling. Relevant systems may include corals, echinoderms, shellfish, fishes, seagrasses, macroalgae, planktonic hosts, marine mammals, aquaculture systems, and coastal or open-ocean communities. By linking marine disease ecology with microbial oceanography and biogeochemistry, this session will highlight how disease both responds to and reshapes waterscapes under pressure. This session will focus on the biology, ecology, and physiology of microorganisms that are related to marine disease phenomena, from those that directly contribute to pathogenesis, to those that drive recycling of disease-derived host materials in the environment. We also solicit research contributions that discuss how eco-evolutionary trajectories driven by marine disease events influence community structure and oceanographic regimes; veterinary histopathological assessments of marine diseases with unclear etiological agents; and studies that consider marine microbial pathogenesis in model systems.

Keywords: Marine Disease, Pathogen, Disease Ecology, Microbial Ecology, Microbiology

SS13 Birth and Growth of the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt: An Understanding of Its Physical, Chemical, and Biological Drivers (ORAL, POST)

Felix Martinez, NOAA ([email protected])
Joaquin Trinanes, NOAA ([email protected])
Brian Barnes, University of South Florida ([email protected])
Brian Lapointe, Florida Atlantic University ([email protected])
Marc Suddleson, NOAA ([email protected])

Driven by physical oceanographic processes, the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt (GASB) has evolved into a persistent, 5,000-mile annual bloom sustained by a complex mix of upwelling, oceanic recycling, and anthropogenic nutrient inputs from major river systems. When these massive biomass mats are driven ashore, they trigger devastating Sargassum Inundation Events (SIEs) that smother coastal ecosystems, leach toxic substances, and inflict severe economic damage on local tourism and fisheries. The primary purpose of this session is to explore the specific physical, chemical, and biological mechanisms governing the formation, rapid growth, and long-term persistence of the GASB. Beyond understanding these foundational drivers, the session aims to achieve the following actionable objectives: 1) Advance Monitoring Capabilities - Evaluate next-generation remote sensing, satellite tracking, and in-situ observational tools to map Sargassum biomass density and movement in real time. 2) Enhance Predictive Modeling - Improve the accuracy of early-warning forecasting models to provide vulnerable coastal communities with longer lead times before an SIE landfall. 3) Mitigate Regional Impacts - Translate chemical and physical oceanographic data into practical risk-assessment frameworks that help stakeholders in the Greater Caribbean, Gulf of America, and West Africa anticipate and minimize localized ecological and socioeconomic disasters. We invite oceanographers, climate modelers, remote sensing specialists, and marine ecologists to contribute their expertise to this session as we work to unmask the environmental drivers of the GASB and improve our regional predictive forecasting capabilities.

Keywords: Sargassum, GASB, remote sensing, ocean circulation, coastal impacts

SS14 At the Base of It All: Lower Food Web Dynamics in a Changing World (ORAL, POST)

Lyubov Burlakova, SUNY Buffalo State University ([email protected])
Alexander Karatayev, SUNY Buffalo State University ([email protected])
Nikola Barulini, SUNY Buffalo State University ([email protected])
James Watkins, Cornell University ([email protected])
Euan Reavie, University of Minnesota ([email protected])

The lower food webs of large freshwater and marine systems—including viruses, bacteria, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and benthic invertebrates—form the foundation of aquatic ecosystem structure and function. These communities drive nutrient cycling, energy transfer, carbon processing, and secondary production, supporting higher trophic levels and the ecosystem services upon which society depends. Yet, despite their central role, lower food web components often receive less attention than fish and other upper trophic levels, even though ecological changes at the base of the food web frequently provide the earliest indicators of environmental stress and ecosystem transformation.

Large freshwater and marine ecosystems worldwide are experiencing unprecedented pressures from climate change, invasive species, eutrophication, hypoxia, inputs of contaminants, habitat alteration, and other anthropogenic stressors. Understanding how these drivers influence lower food web structure and function is critical for predicting ecosystem responses, assessing resilience, and informing effective management. This session will highlight the importance of long-term monitoring and research on lower food webs and will showcase recent advances in understanding spatial and temporal changes in aquatic communities. We welcome presentations examining long-term ecological trends, community dynamics, processes such as the microbial loop and grazing effects, ecosystem responses to environmental change, and the roles of invasive species and other stressors in shaping lower food webs. Contributions focused on methodological innovations—including molecular approaches, environmental DNA, autonomous sensors, imaging technologies, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, and automated monitoring systems—are also encouraged. By bringing together studies from diverse freshwater and marine ecosystems, this session will promote synthesis across regions and disciplines, identify critical knowledge gaps, explore emerging opportunities for monitoring and assessment, and discuss how lower food web information can support ecosystem-based management and conservation in a rapidly changing world.

Keywords: lake, phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthos, monitoring

SS15 Ocean Acidification in the Caribbean and Latin America: Monitoring High-Risk Areas (ORAL, POST)

Jose Martinez, Caribbean Coastal Acidification Network ([email protected])
Debbie-Ann Gordon-Smith, Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON) Caribbean Hub ([email protected])
Cecilia Chapa-Balcorta, Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON) Latin American and Caribbean Network (LAOCA) ([email protected])
Jessie Turner, OA Alliance ([email protected])

The Caribbean and Latin America are home to diverse landscapes and vital marine ecosystems that form the bedrock of the region's economy, supporting over 700 million people. Unfortunately, decades of urbanization, continuous monoculture, and global climate change threaten to destabilize these ecosystems. One of these destabilizing forces is ocean acidification (OA), caused by excess atmospheric CO₂ entering ocean basins resulting in shifting ocean chemistry in the direction of lower pH. This stresses marine organisms, especially calcifiers like corals, making it harder to grow and maintain their shells and skeletons, risking key economic sectors like fisheries and tourism. While OA is a global phenomenon, there is significant variation in regional severity and impact, especially in coastal zones where local stressors, marine organisms, and hydrodynamics play a strong role in regulating carbonate chemistry.

This session will bring together presentations that highlight ocean and coastal acidification work in the Caribbean and Latin America, with particular emphasis on monitoring in high-risk areas. We define "high-risk" as locations where OA intersects with other stressors such as nutrient runoff, warming, deoxygenation and activities like coral restoration and shellfish aquaculture. Along the Latin American Pacific, upwelling of low-pH water creates chronic stress similar to recurrent Sargassum inundation events on Caribbean coasts, both of which can acutely exacerbate global OA. This emphasizes the importance of OA regional studies, as they create a scientific baseline to inform locally appropriate OA mitigation and adaptation strategies.

However, long-term monitoring and research in the Caribbean and Latin America have lagged behind those of other stressors. For example, only 34% of ocean professionals engaged in OA monitoring in the Caribbean measure two of the four OA parameters required to characterize a carbonate chemistry system (Grabb et al. 2025). A lack of low-cost sensors and/or complex laboratory methods that require specific training and expensive instruments likely drives this gap, meaning that the very studies we need are not occurring at the pace OA demands of us. All of this results in a disparity in how governments and coastal communities respond to OA's local and regional impacts. Fortunately, many across the region have recognized this and moved beyond isolated efforts to establish regional networks driven by international frameworks dedicated to overcoming challenges like limited resources and technical capacity. These networks include the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON), that has a Latin American (LAOCA) and Caribbean Hub, IAEA Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre (OA-ICC), the Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (CARICOOS), and the Caribbean Coastal Acidification Network (Cari-CAN).

These networks have achieved success, including LAOCA's recent session for young scientists on understanding the impacts of OA, CARICOOS's MapCO₂ buoy (which has been gathering OA data since 2009), and the OA-ICC's recent training course on monitoring OA in Jamaica. We must further leverage these networks to foment the creation of low-cost OA monitoring methods and strengthen the technical capacity of the region's researchers. This would bridge the gap that governments and coastal communities need to manage, adapt, and mitigate the impacts of OA.

Keywords: Ocean and Coastal Acidification, Seawater Carbonate Chemistry, Sargassum Inundation Events, Coral Reefs, Monitoring

SS16 Trait-Based Approaches for Understanding and Predicting Ecosystem Responses to Global Change (ORAL, POST)

Sarah Hasnain, HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research ([email protected])
Csaba Vad, HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research ([email protected])
Katalin Patonai, Universite de Montreal ([email protected])
Helena Klip, Flathead Lake Biological Station, University of Montana ([email protected])

Aquatic ecosystems globally are impacted by a wide range of anthropogenic stressors, from rising temperatures and chemical pollution to invasive species. Trait-based approaches are increasingly used as a tool for understanding and predicting responses to these stressors. By quantifying the role of an organism within a community, functional traits provide a powerful framework linking community-level changes to shifts in ecosystem functioning, i.e. primary production, metabolism or biogeochemical cycling.

This session invites contributions from across aquatic ecosystems that use trait-based approaches to understand and/or predict ecosystem responses to anthropogenic stressors, including primary production, biogeochemical fluxes, metabolism, decomposition, trophic structure and connectivity, and stability. We are especially interested in submissions incorporating intraspecific trait variation, response-effect traits, trait distributions, cross-trophic trait interactions, or any other trait-based approaches beyond functional diversity metrics. Submissions including multiple interacting stressors are also welcome. We welcome contributions from undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and other early-career scientists.

Keywords: Functional Traits, Ecosystem Functioning, Anthropogenic Stressors, Trophic Interactions, Stability

SS17 Nitrogen Cycling Processes in Aquatic Ecosystems and Associated Food Webs (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Annie Bourbonnais, University of South Carolina ([email protected])
Lin Zhang, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi ([email protected])
Patricia Glibert, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science ([email protected])
Bradley Tolar, University of North Carolina Wilmington ([email protected])

Aquatic ecosystems, ranging from the open ocean to coastal environments, are driven by intricate nitrogen (N) cycling processes that are essential for maintaining the health of these environments and the food webs they sustain. At the base of these food webs, primary producers such as phytoplankton play a pivotal role by assimilating N from various sources through both photoautotrophic and mixotrophic pathways. Autotrophy converts inorganic N to organic N, predominantly in the form of proteins and amino acids (AAs), which serve as the primary carriers of N as it moves through the food webs.

Identifying the sources of N in aquatic ecosystems and their associated food webs is crucial for understanding and modeling these cycling processes. This can be achieved through contemporary measurements of dissolved inorganic N (e.g., nitrate and ammonia) concentrations and stable isotopes, as well as by reconstructing historical N sources and usage patterns using organic N and their isotopes in biogenic particles and sediments. These investigations provide valuable insights into both the past and present dynamics of N cycling in open ocean and coastal environments.

Moreover, N cycling processes have significant implications for climate, as processes such as denitrification and nitrification can lead to the production of nitrous oxide (N₂O), a potent greenhouse gas with long-term impacts on global warming. Understanding the factors that regulate N₂O production and release is therefore essential for predicting the broader environmental consequences of N cycling.

This session aims to bring together researchers utilizing a diverse array of methodologies, including isotope geochemistry, biomolecular tools, and numerical modeling, to explore N cycling in aquatic ecosystems and their associated food webs across both open ocean and coastal areas. By sharing insights and findings, this session seeks to deepen our understanding of N cycling processes across different aquatic environments, ultimately contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of how N cycling influences ecosystem structure and function across various spatial and temporal scales.

Keywords: Nitrogen cycling, Stable Isotopes, Microbiology, Food webs, Climate

SS18 Melting Assumptions: New Perspectives on Under-Ice Plankton Ecology in a Warming World (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Madeline Patenall, Wilfrid Laurier University ([email protected])
Amanda Little, York University and Aurora Research Institute ([email protected])
Rebecca North, University of Missouri ([email protected])

Historically, the ice-cover season in freshwater ecosystems was regarded as a period of dormancy, not warranting biological research. However, over the past decade, increasing evidence has suggested the contrary, with a growing number of researchers highlighting the need for more winter-based limnological research. Today, scholarship largely recognizes the biological, biogeochemical, and physical dynamics that occur in freshwater ecosystems during ice-cover and their role in establishing conditions which are important for the later, open-water season. With the pace of climate change and the increasingly altered temporal and spatial extent of ice cover, it is now more important than ever to understand under-ice processes and how both lake ecosystems and humans may be impacted. This session invites talks on freshwater environments, whether seasonally or continuously ice-covered, to increase information sharing and dialogue among researchers across and within limnological disciplines. We encourage contributions focused on plankton communities which form the foundation of aquatic food webs and whose responses to environmental change can have far-reaching consequences throughout freshwater ecosystems. We also welcome contributions across a range of scopes and topics, not limited to, but including observational investigations, data syntheses, methodological advances, and the socioeconomic impacts of ice loss on humans whose lives are intertwined with ice cover.

Keywords: Winter, Ice, Plankton, Freshwater ecosystems,

SS19 From Satellites to Molecules: Understanding Holopelagic Sargassum Blooms and Ecosystem Dynamics for Predictability and Valorization (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Mar Fernandez Mendez, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz center for Polar and Marine research ([email protected])
Linda Amaral-Zettler, NIOZ ([email protected])

The unprecedented expansion of holopelagic Sargassum across the subtropical Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico has transformed regional marine ecosystems and created significant socioeconomic challenges for coastal communities. This session explores how multi-scale environmental drivers fuel these massive macroalgal blooms and investigates how these ecological pressures can be turned into sustainable socio-ecological opportunities through biomass valorization.

To develop robust, predictive frameworks that can forecast bloom dynamics and facilitate proactive coastal management, we must bridge the gap between macro-scale observations and micro-scale biological processes. This session aims to synthesize current interdisciplinary research spanning the entire lifespan and depth-spectrum of Sargassum, fostering a holistic understanding. We invite submissions that address the following core thematic areas:

• Remote Sensing and Modeling: Satellite tracking, hydrodynamic modeling of transport pathways, and predictive forecasting of beaching events.
• Physiology and Biogeochemistry: Growth rates, nutrient (N, P) and carbon uptake dynamics, and the role of Sargassum in pelagic biogeochemical cycling.
• Food Web Interactions: Associated meiofauna, macrofauna, and higher trophic-level interactions within the traveling Sargassum ecosystem.
• Deep-Sea Fate: Carbon export, sinking dynamics, and deep-sea remineralization processes following bloom collapse.
• Genomics and Biodiversity: Genetic diversity of holopelagic morphotypes and structural insights into the macroalgal tissue.
• The Sargassum Microbiome: Characterization of the host-associated microbial communities, their metabolic roles, and their critical implications for biomass degradation and processing.
• Biomass Valorization: Opportunities for the Bioeconomy.

Ultimately, we aim to accelerate the transition from treating Sargassum strictly as a coastal hazard toward predicting and utilizing it as a valuable marine resource in a circular bioeconomy.

Keywords: Holopelagic Sargassum, Biogeochemical Cycling, Marine Microbiome, Ecological Forecasting, Biomass Valorization

SS20 Understanding, Maintaining, and Restoring Ecological Processes and Ecosystem Services for Sandy Beaches and Coastal Dunes on Rapidly Changing Coastlines (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Kyle Emery, University of California, Santa Barbara ([email protected])
Robert Mayer Arzuaga, University of Puerto Rico, Aguadilla ([email protected])

Sandy beaches and coastal dunes are predominant coastal ecosystems across the globe that face increasing pressures from climate change and anthropogenic development. The continuum from the surf zone to the beach and dunes is critical for maintaining the form and function of these ecosystems. Sea level rise, storm disturbance, and other marine impacts can cause erosion and increased submergence of beaches and dunes. Coastal development and infrastructure can result in dune loss through conversion of land use while also prohibiting the landward migration of dunes with sea level rise. These pressures are especially acute on islands, where chronic, accelerating coastal erosion is reshaping shorelines. In some jurisdictions (e.g., Puerto Rico) the legal boundary that defines the public coastal (maritime-terrestrial) zone is itself contested, still anchored to outdated tidal standards that can narrow protected boundaries, disregard beach and dune dynamics, and weaken safeguards precisely where landward migration must occur. It is essential to understand the ecology of these systems, which depends on their connection to the ocean for organic matter subsidies, sand transport, nutrient flow, as well as to inland systems including wetlands, grasslands, and forests. There are important ecological implications for maintaining these connections, including trophic dynamics, animal movement and nesting, and habitat provisioning. Intact systems are also necessary for maintaining coastal resilience, providing protection against rising seas, storm erosion, and coastal flooding. The knowledge gained from studying these ecosystems can inform restoration and adaptation projects. Equally important, lessons from existing restoration efforts allow us to evaluate their performance and long-term resilience while informing future work. On many such coastlines, nature-based techniques, including biomimicry sand-accumulation matrices, native dune-plant revegetation, removal of invasive species, and sand-trapping exclusion fencing, are being used to counter erosion and rebuild dune form and function, yielding the long-term datasets such evaluations require.

This session will encourage presentations on all aspects of sandy beach and coastal dune ecosystems. As highly understudied environments, it is imperative to deepen our understanding of their form and function, now and under future conditions. We particularly emphasize submissions focusing on ecosystem functions, connectivity and dispersal, resilience and recovery from disturbance, and restoration. Topics can range from animal (fish, invertebrate, shorebird, small mammals, etc.) to plant dynamics, waves and sediment, in situ studies, remote sensing, and modeling. However, all submissions on the ecology and geomorphology of these ecosystems are welcome. We especially encourage contributions from early career researchers and from geographically underrepresented locations.

Keywords: Sandy beach, Coastal dune, Restoration, Ecosystem function, Resilience

SS21 Novel Approaches to Coral Reef Restoration (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Stacey Williams, Institute for Socio-Ecological Research ([email protected])
Alex Mercado Molina, University of Puerto Rico Bayamon ([email protected])

Coral reef ecosystems worldwide continue to experience unprecedented declines due to climate change, disease outbreaks, coastal development, pollution, and overfishing, creating an urgent need for innovative restoration strategies that move beyond traditional coral propagation and outplanting approaches. This session, Novel Approaches to Coral Reef Restoration, will bring together researchers, practitioners, resource managers, engineers, community leaders, and conservation organizations to explore emerging techniques, technologies, and frameworks that are transforming the field of coral reef restoration. The session will highlight cutting-edge advances that seek not only to increase the scale and efficiency of restoration efforts but also to improve the long-term resilience, ecological function, and adaptive capacity of restored reef ecosystems. Topics may include innovations in coral propagation such as microfragmentation, larval enhancement, assisted sexual reproduction, selective breeding, cryopreservation, and the development of land-based and ocean-based coral nurseries. Presentations will also examine emerging tools for increasing coral resilience to environmental stressors, including assisted evolution, probiotic and microbial therapies, heat-tolerant coral genotypes, and strategies designed to enhance coral resistance to disease and thermal stress. Recognizing that healthy coral reefs depend on complex ecological interactions, the session will encourage discussions on ecosystem-based restoration approaches that incorporate the recovery of key reef organisms and ecological processes. Examples include the restoration of herbivorous fish and invertebrates, rebuilding trophic interactions, restoring reef-associated species that contribute to nutrient cycling and reef health, and integrating habitat restoration across connected ecosystems such as mangroves and seagrass beds. The session will also explore the role of emerging technologies in restoration planning, implementation, and monitoring, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, remote sensing, autonomous underwater vehicles, environmental DNA (eDNA), advanced imaging systems, and predictive ecological modeling. Presenters will be encouraged to share lessons learned from pilot projects, large-scale restoration programs, and adaptive management initiatives that demonstrate how novel approaches can be translated into practical conservation outcomes. This session aims to identify promising solutions that can accelerate the recovery of degraded coral reef ecosystems while enhancing their resilience in a rapidly changing world. Participants will gain exposure to pioneering research, practical restoration tools, and new perspectives on how restoration can evolve from isolated coral planting efforts to comprehensive ecosystem recovery strategies. Ultimately, the session seeks to inspire collaboration, spark new partnerships, and advance the development of innovative, science-based restoration approaches capable of addressing the scale and complexity of coral reef degradation facing tropical and subtropical marine ecosystems today.

Keywords: Coral Reef Restoration, Ecosystem-Based Restoration, Coral Propagation, Herbivore Restoration, Nature-Based Solutions

SS22 Where the Land Meets the Sea: Aquatic Margins as Bioreactors, Filters, and Mixers (ORAL, POST)

Angela Knapp, Texas A&M University ([email protected])
Joseph Tamborski, Old Dominion University ([email protected])

Aquatic margins represent the primary interface where terrestrial inputs reach the ocean. However, processes including biological assimilation, flocculation and scavenging, and exchange with particles and the benthos modify these fluxes, making it challenging to quantify net elemental fluxes to the open ocean. Moreover, coastal regions, including continental shelves, have short residence times and dynamic physical processes that make it difficult to characterize "mean" conditions.

This session seeks presentations that describe advances in quantifying net elemental fluxes at ocean margins, as well as characterization of biogeochemical and/or physical processes that enhance or inhibit elemental fluxes. Additionally, modeling studies that improve our understanding of controls on elemental fluxes across the margins are encouraged.

Implications of presentations may include but are not limited to estimating the residence time of elements in the ocean; quantifying and identifying the source of nutrients fueling primary productivity, harmful algal blooms and/or eutrophication; quantifying net elemental fluxes at specific margins; and characterization of processes that impede or enhance net elemental fluxes from rivers and/or submarine groundwater discharge to the open ocean. Studies examining inputs from atmospheric deposition and hydrothermal activity are also welcome.

Keywords: coast, margin, estuary, biogeochemistry, shelf

SS23 From Droughts to Fisheries: Climate–River–Ocean Linkages Across Timescales (ORAL, POST)

Igal Berenshtein, University of Haifa ([email protected])
Kaustubh Thirumalai, University of Arizona ([email protected])

Climate-driven changes in precipitation, drought frequency, monsoon dynamics, and river discharge are reshaping aquatic ecosystems worldwide. While the impacts of hydroclimatic variability on terrestrial and freshwater systems are increasingly recognized, the cascading consequences for downstream estuarine, coastal, and marine ecosystems remain poorly understood. Growing evidence suggests that alterations in freshwater inflow and nutrient delivery can propagate through food webs, influencing primary productivity, recruitment dynamics, fisheries yields, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience.

This session seeks to bridge disciplinary boundaries by bringing together researchers studying the connections between climate variability, watershed processes, river discharge, aquatic productivity, and ecosystem responses across spatial and temporal scales. We welcome contributions spanning contemporary observations, experimental studies, ecosystem and Earth-system modeling, paleoenvironmental reconstructions, and future climate projections.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Droughts, floods, monsoon variability, and other hydroclimatic extremes in aquatic systems
• River discharge and nutrient flux controls on aquatic productivity
• Estuarine and coastal ecosystem responses to changing freshwater inputs
• Fisheries and food-web consequences of climate-driven hydrological change
• Paleo-records of climate–ecosystem interactions and ecological regime shifts
• Ecosystem resilience, thresholds, and tipping points under hydroclimatic stress
• Coupled watershed–river–ocean modeling approaches
• Implications for conservation, fisheries management, and climate adaptation

By fostering dialogue among climatologists, hydrologists, paleoceanographers, ecologists, oceanographers, fisheries scientists, and modelers, this session aims to advance a more integrated understanding of how climate variability propagates across land–sea boundaries and influences aquatic ecosystem function across timescales.

Keywords: Hydroclimate Variability, Drought, River Discharge, Fisheries, Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction

SS24 Biogeochemical Connections and Ecosystem Adaptations Across the Land-Estuary-Ocean Continuum in a Changing World (ORAL, POST)

Michael Seidel, University of Oldenburg, Germany ([email protected])
Wokil Bam, University of Southern Mississippi ([email protected])
Patricia M. Medeiros, University of Georgia, USA ([email protected])
Puspa Adhikari, Florida Gulf Coast University ([email protected])
Sairah Malkin, University of Maryland, USA ([email protected])
Sasha Wagner, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA ([email protected])
Kanchan Maiti, Louisiana State University ([email protected])
Nicholas D. Ward, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA ([email protected])
Xiaochen Zhao, Louisiana State University ([email protected])
Gage Hunter, Louisiana State University ([email protected])

The transfer of water, carbon, nutrients, trace metals, sediments, and other materials from terrestrial environments to coastal and open-ocean ecosystems is a fundamental process that governs biogeochemical cycling, ecosystem productivity, and carbon storage across the land–ocean continuum. Rivers, estuaries, wetlands, groundwater discharge, and other land–sea exchange pathways transport dissolved and particulate constituents that regulate primary production, nutrient regeneration, carbon fluxes, and microbial processes while linking terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Understanding the magnitude, pathways, transformations, and fate of these fluxes across spatial and temporal scales is essential for predicting ecosystem responses to environmental change. Rapid anthropogenic and climatic changes including land-use change, watershed modification, urbanization, wetland loss, sea-level rise, and shifts in biogeochemical baselines are altering the quantity, quality, timing, and composition of land-derived inputs to aquatic environments. Increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events such as hurricanes, tropical storms, floods, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires further influence carbon and nutrient transport, elemental transformations, CO₂ exchange, microbial community dynamics, and ecosystem resilience. These changes have significant implications for the functioning of coastal ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide.

This session welcomes contributions investigating the transport, transformation, and fate of carbon, nutrients, organic matter, trace metals, sediments and other biogeochemically important constituents across terrestrial, riverine, estuarine and coastal environments. We encourage studies spanning a range of ecosystems, latitudes, and spatial and temporal scales that examine biogeochemical connectivity, elemental cycling, sedimentary, particulate, and dissolved organic matter dynamics, microbial processes, and ecosystem responses to environmental stressors. Contributions integrating field observations, experiments, remote sensing, modeling, geochemical and isotopic tracers, emerging technologies, novel analytical approaches, interdisciplinary frameworks, and synthesis efforts are particularly encouraged. By bringing together diverse perspectives and methodologies, this session aims to advance understanding of land–ocean biogeochemical linkages and improve predictions that support conservation, restoration, and management of aquatic ecosystems in a rapidly changing Earth system.

Keywords: Land-Ocean Continuum, Biogeochemical Cycling, Carbon and Nutrient Fluxes, Organic Matter Dynamics, Environmental Change

SS25 Beyond Blue: The Many Colors of the Ocean (ORAL, POST)

Hossain Taufiq, Arizona State University ([email protected])
Lekelia Jenkins, Arizona State University ([email protected])
Anup Phayal, UNC Wilmington ([email protected])
Susanne Neuer, Arizona State University ([email protected])

The "blue economy" has become a dominant framework for envisioning sustainable ocean development, but its widespread adoption risks oversimplifying the complex, often competing realities that scientists, policymakers, and communities actually navigate. The contemporary ocean is simultaneously a site of climate transformation, geopolitical rivalry, resource extraction, technological innovation, and conservation, dynamics that a singular "blue" framing fails to capture.

Effective ocean governance requires integrating diplomatic strategy, local, national and international law, and scientific evidence to manage shared resources across scales. Scientists play a central role: from informing multilateral agreements such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the High Seas Treaty, to guiding the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030), to providing the empirical foundation for regulating emerging frontiers like deep-sea mining and marine carbon sequestration. Science operates within, and is shaped by, broader geopolitical and institutional contexts that determine whether evidence translates into policy.

We propose a multi-color spectrum as an analytical framework for disaggregating ocean governance into its constituent domains:

• Blue—blue economy: tourism, fisheries, and aquaculture
• Clear—governed seas: UNCLOS, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), high seas treaties
• Grey—ungoverned seas: contested zones, dark fleets, illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing
• Green—decarbonization: blue carbon, offshore renewables
• Brown—toxics: plastics, harmful algal blooms, and eutrophication
• Red—conflict: militarization, strategic straits, access disputes, bycatch
• White—cryosphere: Arctic and Antarctic sea ice dynamics
• Black—connectivity: the Black Atlantic, submarine cables, autonomous shipping
• Metallic—extraction: critical minerals, oil and gas, seabed mining

Each color represents a governance domain with distinct actors, institutions, and scientific needs, yet these domains intersect in ways that create both synergies and tensions (for example, research on multiple pressures / uses in the same ocean region). This framework offers a more rigorous and comprehensive lens for understanding ocean complexity than singular blue narratives allow.

We invite contributions that engage with ocean governance, the blue economy, and ocean diplomacy from empirical, interdisciplinary, or applied perspectives. We particularly welcome evidence-based analyses of emerging challenges, governance gaps, and scalable solutions that advance sustainable, equitable, and resilient ocean futures. Presenters can choose to focus on one or more of these colors/themes, propose other colors/themes, and/or provide critiques or expansions of this model.

Keywords: Ocean governance, Blue economy, Maritime geopolitics, Sustainable ocean futures, Interdisciplinary research

SS26 A New Light on Climate Change: How Do Altered Light Regimes Reshape Aquatic Life? (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Brittany Zepernick, University of North Carolina Wilmington ([email protected])
Emily Chase, University of Winnipeg ([email protected])

Climate change is transforming aquatic ecosystems beyond warming and acidification. Across the aquatic continuum, climate-driven changes are rapidly reshaping the underwater light environment – altering the quantity, quality and distribution of light available to organisms. These changes to light are posed to influence energy flow, food webs and biogeochemical cycles across the aquatic continuum. In freshwater systems, declining ice cover is altering winter light regimes and ecosystem processes. In estuarine systems, increasing storm intensity and sea-level rise are modifying turbidity and light attenuation. In marine environments, enhanced stratification and shifts in mixed-layer depth are changing light availability throughout the photic zone. Together, these changes are creating novel light climates across global aquatic ecosystems. Despite light serving as a fundamental driver of biological production and biogeochemical cycling, the ecological consequences of these shifting light regimes remain poorly resolved compared to other dimensions of climate change – leaving gaps in our ability to predict ecosystem responses. This session will provide a forum for researchers investigating how climate-driven changes in light influence physical, chemical and biological phenomena across the aquatic continuum. In tandem, this session will serve as a framework for aquatic scientists to incorporate light considerations into their respective research. We welcome contributions that characterize changes in aquatic light climates, identify their physical and chemical drivers, and examine biological responses across levels of organization. By bringing together diverse, interdisciplinary perspectives across the aquatic continuum, this session aims to illuminate how changing light environments are reshaping aquatic ecosystems in a climatically altered world.

Keywords: Climate change, Aquatic light climate, Photic zone, Biogeochemistry, Primary production

SS27 Metabolites at the Intersections of Microbial Networks in Aquatic Systems (ORAL, POST)

Elizabeth Kujawinski, WHOI ([email protected])
Sonya Dyhrman, Columbia University ([email protected])

Metabolites are organic molecules produced during biochemical reactions within organisms across all taxonomic levels in aquatic systems. Once dissolved in the surrounding water, they serve as growth substrates, co-factors and/or infochemical signals within microbial consortia, thus playing important roles in modulating microbiome function. Despite the central role of the chemical-microbe network in the aquatic carbon cycle, our knowledge of metabolites and their dynamics in various aquatic systems remains poor because metabolites are analytically challenging to quantify in aquatic systems due to their heterogeneous chemical nature and their dilute concentrations relative to background organic matter. This session invites presentations on all aspects of metabolite cycling in aquatic systems in laboratory, field and/or modelling investigations. We seek studies that explore the metabolites that sit at the intersection of microbial networks, including distributions, production and loss rates, and specific interactions of metabolites in aquatic systems. These can include chemical, biological, and numerical investigations in both laboratory and field contexts. Novel analytical methods that expand the lexicon of metabolites are welcome, as well as new computational and modelling efforts that integrate across complementary 'omics datasets to gain insights into the function of the chemical-microbe network.

Keywords: microbe-metabolite networks, biogeochemical modelling, metabolites, DOM,

SS28 Intrinsic and Extrinsic Controls on Organic Matter Transformations Across Systems and Scales (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

John Paul Balmonte, Lehigh University ([email protected])
Shuting Liu, Kean University ([email protected])
Yuan Shen, Xiamen University ([email protected])

Organic matter (OM) across aquatic environments represents a complex continuum of dissolved to particulate compounds, with reactivities spanning highly labile substrates turning over within hours or days, to refractory components that persist for millennia. The lability and fate of OM, whether it is integrated into food webs, remineralized to carbon dioxide, or sequestered in deep water or sediments, determine the potential of ecosystems to be carbon sources or sinks. However, substantial gaps remain in our understanding of intrinsic (structural properties) versus extrinsic (physicochemical conditions and biota) controls on OM sources, sinks, and transformations. These knowledge gaps are especially urgent in light of changing environmental conditions globally, as emphasized by the theme Waterscapes Under Pressure. Shifting environmental baselines lead to added questions, including: How do interacting stressors influence OM transformations, and alter the interplay between intrinsic vs. extrinsic controls? How do advanced technologies from high-resolution analytical chemistry instrumentation (e.g., LC-FT-ICR MS) to "omics" reshape our understanding of OM characterization and transformations in aquatic environments? To what extent are changes in the carbon cycle already evident across ecosystems, and how do compounding stressors shift the balance between OM persistence vs. sequestration? In which regions or systems are historical and continuous data available for predictive models, and where are these efforts needed to establish critical baselines? Finally, can we identify universal, transferable principles to predict OM fate across the land-to-ocean continuum?

In this session, we invite presentations exploring the lability, transformation, and fate of organic matter across all aquatic ecosystems. We welcome submissions that utilize a range of approaches and foci, including high-resolution chemical characterization, microbial-OM interaction studies, ecosystem-specific tracking, or predictive modeling across spatial and temporal scales. These studies can separately leverage or combine field observations, laboratory experiments, and modeling approaches, and can sit anywhere along the dissolved-particulate organic matter continuum. Finally, we welcome emerging insights from severely underexplored systems, recent methodological advances for empirical measurements or new modeling frameworks, and new perspectives that refine our understanding of OM transformations from terrestrial surface waters to the deep sea.

Keywords: Organic matter, transformations, fate, extrinsic, intrinsic

SS29 Terrigenous Organic Matter from Source to Sink: Diagenesis, Transport, and Cross-Scale Synthesis of Land-Derived Carbon (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Karl Kaiser, Texas A&M University at Galveston ([email protected])
Peter Hernes, University of California Davis ([email protected])

The fate of terrigenous organic matter (tOM)—how land–derived organic carbon is transported, transformed, and ultimately buried or remineralized en route from soils and rivers through estuaries and continental margins to the open ocean—remains a central uncertainty in the global carbon cycle. This session invites studies illuminating this source-to-sink trajectory using lignin biomarkers alongside complementary approaches, including other source-specific biomarkers, stable and radiocarbon isotopes, and bulk and molecular characterizations. We welcome work spanning microbial/photodegradation, sorptive partitioning, differences between particulate and dissolved tOM cycling, and regional-to-global syntheses that quantify general processes governing terrigenous tOM cycling across systems and biomes.

A recurring obstacle to such synthesis is data comparability. For widely used proxies like lignin biomarkers, differences in extraction, chemistry, instrumentation, and quantification across laboratories, together with the absence of certified values for natural samples, introduce uncertainty that can obscure the signals synthesis seeks to resolve. We therefore also encourage contributions on inter-laboratory comparison and calibration, reference materials, shared protocols, and advances in sensitivity and throughput.

By pairing process-level science with the methods that make cross-dataset synthesis credible, this session aims to strengthen the data backbone that regional and global carbon programs require, and to lower the barrier for researchers adopting these techniques.

Keywords: Organic carbon cycling, Estuarine and nearshore processes, Terrigenous organic matter, Liginin, Synthesis

SS30 Long-Term Research and Emerging Challenges in Puerto Rico's Stream Ecosystems: From Headwaters to Coastal Waters (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Omar Perez-Reyes, University of Puerto Rico ([email protected])
Anthony Martir Perez, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras ([email protected])

Puerto Rico's stream ecosystems have served as globally recognized natural laboratories for advancing our understanding of tropical freshwater ecology, biogeochemistry, hydrology, and ecosystem resilience. More than four decades of research conducted across the island, particularly within long-term monitoring and experimental study sites, have generated valuable insights into the structure and function of tropical stream networks and their responses to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. These ecosystems are characterized by unique biological communities, strong hydrologic connectivity, steep environmental gradients, and frequent exposure to extreme events such as hurricanes, droughts, floods, and landslides. Long-term ecological studies have documented how these systems recover from disturbances, regulate nutrient cycling, support biodiversity, connect with nearshore marine ecosystems, and provide essential ecosystem services to local communities. However, Puerto Rico's freshwater ecosystems now face unprecedented challenges driven by climate change, urbanization, land-use transformation, water extraction, invasive species, pollution, and increasing environmental change. The intensification of extreme weather events, including major hurricanes and prolonged droughts, is altering hydrologic regimes, sediment transport, water quality, and ecological processes in ways that still remain poorly understood. At the same time, expanding development pressures and changing socio-economic conditions are creating new stressors that interact with natural disturbances across watersheds. This session will bring together researchers, resource managers, educators, and students to examine how long-term research has advanced our understanding of Puerto Rico's stream ecosystems and to identify emerging scientific questions and management priorities for the coming decades. By highlighting both historical achievements and future research directions, this session aims to foster dialogue among scientists working across disciplines and regions, strengthen collaborations within the tropical freshwater research community, and promote the development of strategies that enhance the resilience and sustainability of Puerto Rico's stream ecosystems.

Keywords: Freshwater, Marine Ecosystems, Natural Disasters, Anthropogenic impacts, Connectivity

SS31 Climate Adaptation in Coastal Waterscapes: Navigating Pressures, Resilience, and Opportunities in the Blue Economy (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Prince Emeka Ndimele, Lagos State University ([email protected])
Osas Adeniyi, Ajayi Crowther University ([email protected])
Olusola Adeoye, Nature Cares Resource Centre, Lagos, Nigeria. ([email protected])
Josephine Oluseyi Adebayo, University of Ibadan ([email protected])
Esther Karo Oghenede, Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research ([email protected])

Coastal waterscapes are among the most dynamic and productive environments on Earth, yet multiple interacting pressures, including climate change, habitat degradation, pollution, resource overexploitation, and rapid coastal development, increasingly challenge them. These stressors are altering ecosystem structure and function, disrupting ecosystem services, and creating complex risks for blue economy sectors, coastal livelihoods, and public health. At the same time, these challenges present opportunities to reimagine how coastal systems are managed, governed, and restored to enhance resilience in a changing world.

This session invites contributions that explore the impacts of climatic and anthropogenic pressures on coastal and marine ecosystems and examine pathways for adaptation that support both ecological sustainability and human well-being. We are particularly interested in studies that investigate how sea-level rise, ocean warming, marine heatwaves, acidification, extreme events, and cumulative environmental stressors affect fisheries, aquaculture, coastal infrastructure, biodiversity, food systems, and disease dynamics across coastal regions.

A central focus of the session is the application of the One Health framework to understand the interconnected health of aquatic ecosystems, marine organisms, and human communities. We welcome research that advances knowledge of socio-ecological resilience and highlights opportunities for adaptive management, ecosystem restoration, and sustainable blue economy development. Relevant topics include nature-based solutions, living shorelines, blue carbon ecosystems, climate-smart fisheries and aquaculture, marine spatial planning, ecosystem-based adaptation, and integrated coastal management.

The session also encourages contributions that address governance innovations, participatory approaches, Indigenous and local knowledge systems, environmental justice, and equitable adaptation strategies. Studies employing ecological forecasting, modelling, risk assessment, decision-support tools, and transdisciplinary methodologies are particularly welcome, as are comparative analyses that identify transferable lessons across regions and scales.

By bringing together researchers, practitioners, resource managers, and policymakers, this session seeks to advance understanding of how coastal waterscapes under pressure can become focal points for innovation, adaptation, and sustainability. Through interdisciplinary dialogue, we aim to identify actionable solutions that strengthen ecosystem resilience, safeguard public health, and promote thriving coastal communities and blue economies under accelerating environmental change.

Keywords: Blue Economy, Climate Change, Ecosystem Services, One Health, Ecological Sustainability

SS32 The Ocean Biomolecular Observing Network (OBON): Biomolecular Observations for Aquatic Ecosystems Under Pressure (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Eric Raes, Minderoo Foundation ([email protected])
Annette Govindarajan, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ([email protected])
Hassan Moustahfid, NOAA ([email protected])

Understanding rapid shifts in aquatic ecosystems requires scalable, high-resolution approaches that provide standardized biological data from local to global scales. The Ocean Biomolecular Observing Network (OBON), endorsed by the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, is advancing the use of biomolecular observations, including environmental DNA (eDNA), genomics, transcriptomics, and other emerging omics to transform how aquatic ecosystems are monitored. By linking community structure to ecological function, these tools offer unprecedented insights into both biodiversity and biogeochemical processes.

OBON is building a global network of researchers, observing systems, and infrastructure to generate interoperable biomolecular data across the inland-to-ocean continuum. Concurrently, the network is working to expand reference libraries, integrate biomolecular data into ecological models, and build global capacity to ensure equitable access to these technologies.

This session invites contributions from both limnological and oceanographic communities. We particularly welcome studies spanning methodological advances, observing system development, reference library creation, time-series and field observations, modelling applications, and the translation of biomolecular data into management and policy outcomes. We particularly encourage research demonstrating how biomolecular observations can address the drivers of environmental change, map freshwater-to-marine connectivity, and create new opportunities for aquatic ecosystem stewardship, conservation, sustainable living marine resources and resilient aquatic futures.

Keywords: eDNA, Biodiversity, Biomolecular, Technology, Citizen Science

SS33 From Tiny Cells to Global Cycles: Linking Microbial Activity and Interactions to Marine Biogeochemistry (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Rachele Spezzano, Marine Biological Laboratory ([email protected])
Matthew Harke, Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute ([email protected])
Alexandra Worden, Marine Biological Laboratory ([email protected])

Microbial communities are known to mediate the transformation and fate of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus in the oceans. However, activities and interactions at the cellular scale are poorly resolved, hampering mechanistic understanding of global biogeochemical cycles. This session is organized around the functional links between microbial ecology and marine biogeochemistry, with particular emphasis on methodological approaches that bridge cellular-scale processes and ecosystem-scale fluxes. Recent methodological advances make it possible to directly interrogate these links across scales. Flow cytometry and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) enable the isolation of physiologically distinct populations, while stable isotope probing (SIP) and NanoSIMS provide quantitative, cell-resolved data on in situ metabolic activity and elemental uptake. Moreover, targeted metagenomic, metatranscriptomic, and metaproteomic approaches applied to defined populations reveal functional information on active microbes. Network- and systems-based modeling further contribute tools for connecting microbial community dynamics to biogeochemical fluxes, with cross-scale approaches increasingly linking cellular processes to regional and global cycles. Here we welcome contributions that address the above topics, as they relate to microbial activities and interactions - including growth, predation, competition, syntrophy, and viral dynamics - and roles in structuring biogeochemical cycles. Contributions focused on the activity and biogeochemical role of individual taxa, consortia of cells, or communities are equally encouraged. To this end, we hope to examine mechanistic controls on carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur cycling in the ocean water column, including both oxic and anoxic environments, and extending to pathways linked to greenhouse gas production and consumption. Bringing together microbial ecologists, biogeochemists, and systems biologists, this session aims to advance our mechanistic understanding of how microbial life and interactions shape ocean biogeochemical cycling and climate feedbacks.

Keywords: Microbial activity and interactions, Biogeochemical cycling, Flow cytometry and cell sorting, Stable isotope probing, NanoSIMS

SS34 Molecular Signals of Climate Change in Aquatic Systems (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Margaret Mars Brisbin, University of South Florida ([email protected])
Arianna Krinos, Brown University ([email protected])

Aquatic ecosystems experience constant environmental shifts, making decoding signals of long-term change challenging. Molecular methods accelerate assessment of aquatic biological responses to environmental change via combining assessment of the community's present health with evolutionary potential to adapt to novel stressors. We invite submissions from across scales in aquatic biology that address the question of climate change adaptation in aquatic ecosystems via molecular methods. We define scales here as measuring environmental shifts across both space and time and assessing biological responses from microbial communities to marine mammals. We welcome all forms of molecular science to this session, including but not limited to genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics.

Keywords: climate change, `-omics, community, scales,

SS35 Modeling Across Scales in Aquatic Ecosystems (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Arianna Krinos, Brown University ([email protected])
Mara Freilich, Brown University ([email protected])
Suzana Leles, University of Texas at Austin ([email protected])

Aquatic environments are inherently multiscale–physically, biologically, and chemically. Broad understanding of aquatic ecosystems requires systems-level synthesis of transport and biogeochemistry. Multiscale analysis underlies predictive capacity in the field: processes at small scales, e.g., the Kolmogorov or the single-cell level have been shown to be predictive of larger scales, e.g., pollutant dispersal and physiological stress. Aquatic modeling frameworks at the whole-ocean or whole-water column scale have been extensively leveraged to make predictions about the future physical, chemical, and biological states of aquatic environments. However, increasingly, smaller-scale models (e.g., kilometer and smaller scale physical circulation models), physiological models (e.g., proteome allocation models and macromolecular models), and genome-scale metabolic models are used to explain local trends and the extensive information available in molecular -omics data (including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics). Unifying scales of modeling can lead to powerful insights of how small-scale processes map to large-scale predictions useful over longer timescales. In this session, we invite modeling work that includes or considers multiple scales. This may take the form of multiple models coupled together, or creative ways of evaluating cross-scale results. We particularly invite proposals considering the importance of interactions between small-scale physical, biological, or chemical processes over larger temporal or spatial scales.

Keywords: modeling, `-omics, multiscale, dynamics,

SS36 Artificial Intelligence Applications in Ecosystem Modeling: Integrating Modeling, Simulation, and Artificial Intelligence for Aquatic Ecosystem Prediction (ORAL, POST)

Steven Morey, Florida A&M University ([email protected])
Hyun Jung Cho, Bethune-Cookman University ([email protected])
Kelley San Antonio, Bethune-Cookman University ([email protected])

Modeling, simulation, and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) are becoming increasingly important for understanding and predicting aquatic ecosystem change. This session will highlight approaches that integrate mechanistic simulation, field observations, remote sensing, geospatial data, sensor networks, and AI/ML methods to support ecosystem modeling across coastal, estuarine, marine, and freshwater systems. We invite presentations on coupled physical-biological models, water quality forecasting, harmful algal bloom and hypoxia prediction, habitat and species distribution modeling, fisheries and food-web applications, data assimilation, uncertainty analysis, explainable AI, and decision-support tools. The session is intended to connect model developers, field scientists, resource managers, educators, and students, with emphasis on practical applications, reproducible workflows, training, and the responsible use of AI in aquatic science. By bringing together mechanistic modeling and AI/ML-driven pattern discovery, this session will examine how ecosystem models can become more interpretable, actionable, and useful for environmental prediction and management.

Keywords: Ecosystem Modeling, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Modeling and Simulation, Decision Support

SS37 Integrating Diverse Observations to Understand Plankton Biogeography (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Yubin Raut, MIT ([email protected])
Stephanie Dutkiewicz, MIT ([email protected])
Nathan Williams, USC ([email protected])

Plankton communities, including phytoplankton, bacterioplankton, zooplankton, and viruses, are fundamental drivers of aquatic ecosystem functioning, food-web dynamics, biodiversity, and biogeochemical cycling. Across lakes, rivers, estuaries, coastal zones, and the open ocean, these communities respond to environmental gradients and stressors that shape their distribution, diversity, and ecological roles. Yet, despite rapid advances in observation and analysis, developing a holistic understanding of plankton biogeography across the aquatic continuum remains a major challenge.

A growing array of approaches is transforming our ability to characterize plankton communities and their functions. These include 1) molecular techniques such as metabarcoding, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and other molecular approaches, 2) imaging and enumeration technologies including microscopy, flow cytometry, imaging flow cytobots, and underwater vision profilers, 3) autonomous observing systems, 4) remotely sensed observations, 5) data-driven statistical models, such as species distribution models, and 6) mechanistic three-dimensional ecosystem models. Each of these approaches provides a distinct "lens" through which aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem processes can be viewed. However, differences in taxonomic resolution, methodological assumptions, spatial and temporal coverage, and data products often complicate comparisons and synthesis across studies and ecosystems.

This session invites contributions, for both talks and posters, that use one or more observational, analytical, or modeling approaches to investigate the distribution, diversity, and ecological function of plankton communities across aquatic systems. We particularly encourage studies that integrate multiple data types or methodological frameworks to understand plankton biogeography. Contributions addressing long-term trends, emerging technologies, community assembly processes, biodiversity monitoring, functional biogeography, and cross-system comparisons are especially welcome.

By bringing together researchers working across diverse aquatic environments and methodological domains, this session aims to foster dialogue on how different observational lenses can be combined to advance understanding of plankton biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. The session will highlight opportunities for synthesis across the aquatic continuum and identify pathways toward more integrated monitoring and prediction of aquatic ecosystems in a rapidly changing world.

Keywords: plankton biogeography, biodiversity, omics, ecosystem monitoring, optical measurements

SS38 Omics Approaches for Understanding Aquatic Ecosystems: From Microbes to Megafauna (ORAL, POST)

Cheryl Logan, California State University Monterey Bay ([email protected])
Brent Thoma, Jackson State University ([email protected])
Richard Long, Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University ([email protected])

Advances in sequencing technologies and molecular biology are transforming our ability to study aquatic ecosystems across levels of biological organization, from microbial communities to top predators. This session will highlight the application of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, epigenomics, metabolomics, environmental DNA (eDNA), and other -omics approaches to address fundamental and applied questions in aquatic science. We invite presentations that use -omics tools to investigate biodiversity, ecosystem function, species interactions, adaptation and resilience to environmental change, fisheries and aquaculture, conservation biology, restoration, harmful algal blooms, water quality, biogeochemical cycling, and ecosystem responses to climate stressors.

We particularly encourage contributions that integrate -omics data with field observations, laboratory experiments, ecological modeling, remote sensing, environmental monitoring, and resource management applications. The session is intended to bring together molecular biologists, ecologists, oceanographers, limnologists, fisheries scientists, resource managers, educators, and students working across diverse aquatic systems and taxa. By fostering interdisciplinary discussion, this session will explore how -omics technologies are advancing ecological understanding, supporting ecosystem stewardship, and informing management decisions in rapidly changing aquatic environments.

Keywords: Genomics, Transcriptomics, eDNA, epigenomics, aquatic ecosystems

SS39 Coral Polyps to Pixels: Photogrammetric and Segmentation Techniques for Coral Reef Monitoring and Evaluation. (ORAL, POST)

Hector Ruiz, HJR Reefscaping ([email protected])
Joseph Townsend, UPR Mayaguez Marine Science ([email protected])

Photogrammetric imaging and artificial intelligence-driven segmentation have fundamentally changed what is possible in coral reef monitoring. Where traditional survey methods—video transects, point-intercept surveys, photo quadrats—capture snapshots at limited spatial scales, modern structure-from-motion (SfM) workflows now generate centimeter-resolution orthomosaics of entire reef sections, enabling spatially continuous, reproducible, and quantitative assessments that were logistically impossible just a decade ago. These tools meet a growing demand across restoration programs, national monitoring networks, and regulatory compliance frameworks for data that are not only accurate but scalable.

This session broadens the conversation beyond coral restoration to encompass the full spectrum of coral reef monitoring and ecosystem evaluation. Programs such as NOAA's National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) are already deploying photogrammetric methods at regional scales; restoration practitioners are using orthomosaics to track outplant survival and growth; and research groups are applying AI-assisted segmentation to detect bleaching, quantify structural complexity, and characterize benthic community shifts over time. Despite this momentum, practitioners face a fragmented landscape of hardware options, software platforms, and analytical approaches—with little consensus on which combinations are appropriate for which scientific or management questions.

This session brings together field scientists, imaging specialists, and restoration ecologists to share methods, compare tools, and develop practical frameworks for photographic monitoring of coral reefs. The session is organized around three interconnected themes:

Equipment and imaging systems—Camera systems, including DSLRs, mirrorless cameras, and compact housings, along with lighting choices and calibration targets. Drone and autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) platforms for broader spatial coverage. Survey design, including the image overlap needed for SfM processing, GPS tagging, and site markers. Comparisons between diver-operated and autonomous platforms, and the importance of standardizing depth and lighting across repeat surveys.

Data processing and image analysis—Comparing common SfM software pipelines, such as Agisoft Metashape, Pix4D, and OpenDroneMap, and approaches to quality control. Orthomosaic generation, georeferencing using ground control points (GCPs), scaling, and archiving standards. Comparing point-count and full-cover segmentation, including AI-assisted tools such as TagLab and CoralNet. Considerations in label design, colony-level tracking versus percent cover, consistency between analysts, and the tradeoff between resolution and simplification. Cloud-based versus local workflows, metadata standards, and open data practices.

Ecosystem evaluation at scale—Moving beyond restoration plots to reef-wide and regional monitoring, through programs such as NCRMP, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), and Reef Check. Detecting spatial patterns of change, including bleaching impacts, recovery trajectories, and the spread of invasive species. Assessing benthic community composition, biodiversity, and structural complexity from orthomosaic imagery. Scaling monitoring from individual nursery tables to ecosystem-level assessments, and integrating new data with existing long-term datasets.

A unifying thread across all three themes is the tradeoff between resolution and simplification: at what point do higher image resolution and finer taxonomic classification schemes generate diminishing ecological returns, and when do they introduce analytical overhead that limits scalability? Speakers will be encouraged to clearly articulate the ecological questions or hypotheses their specific methods are best suited to address, and to present honest, comparative assessments of what their methods can and cannot detect, including the applications they support, the limitations they carry, and the cost in time, expertise, and equipment required to use them.

Keywords: coral reef monitoring, orthomosaic, benthic segmentation, monitoring protocols, ecosystem evaluation

SS40 Same Climate Exposure, Different Stress: Integrating Interdisciplinary Approaches to Bridge Ecophysiology, Biophysics, Fluid Dynamics, and Ecosystem Management Across Scales. (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Max Dhillon, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) ([email protected])
Shannon Klein, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) ([email protected])
Tadd Truscott, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) ([email protected])

Aquatic ecosystems worldwide are facing unprecedented pressure from compound extreme events, such as the simultaneous convergence of marine heatwaves (MHWs) and rapid deoxygenation. While macro-scale monitoring models track these climate stressors at regional levels, evaluating them in isolation overlooks a critical "hydrodynamic transport blind spot" in aquatic ecology, leaving a significant gap in our understanding of how these processes play out in situ. Regional environmental data is filtered through a local biophysical lens before it ever reaches an organism. At the microenvironment scale, the interplay between heightened metabolic demand and stagnant fluid flow can amplify macro-scale anomalies into a lethal, localized "perfect storm".

This session explores the decoupled reality between bulk-water measurements and the actual tissue-level microenvironments experienced by sessile and benthic organisms across globally critical tropical and temperature habitats (e.g., reef-building corals, seagrass, oysters). As passive diffusion is roughly four orders of magnitude less efficient in water than in air, the flux of gases, solutes, and heat is strictly governed by the diffusive boundary layer (DBL) and thermal boundary layer (TBL), as defined by Fick's Law. Under low-flow or stagnant conditions, these boundary layers thicken, acting as a biophysical "metabolic trap". Here, tissue-level oxygen concentrations can plummet toward severe hypoxia/anoxia far faster than bulk-water metrics imply, crossing critical physiological tipping points that can trigger rapid mortality. Conversely, in hydrodynamically active environments—driven by external currents or active biological mechanisms like ciliary beating—flow acts as a master regulator, accelerating mass transport and alleviating multiple stressors simultaneously via convective cooling and boundary layer reduction.

We invite interdisciplinary contributions that bridge ecophysiology, biophysics, fluid dynamics, modelling, and ecosystem management across scales—from interactions between global- and regional-scale weather and bathymetry to organismal morphology and micro-scale boundary layers. Topics of interest include biophysical modelling of compound extremes, in situ boundary layer dynamics, microsensing, metabolic responses to flow variation, and the integration of hydrodynamics into mitigation and "precision restoration". By elevating non-thermal parameters from silent variables to core ecological parameters, this session aims to advance predictive forecasting and unlock innovative, flow-optimized conservation strategies for waterscapes under pressure.

Keywords: Ecophysiology, Biophysical feedback loops, Compound extremes, Mass transport limitations, Boundary layer dynamics

SS41 Bioluminescent Wonders: Integrating Research and Management to Better Understand and Protect Bioluminescent Bays (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Margaret Mars Brisbin, University of South Florida ([email protected])
Cynthia Becker, Ithaca College ([email protected])
Hannah Reich, SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry ([email protected])
Mark Martin Bras, Vieques Conservation and Historical Trust ([email protected])

Bioluminescent bays are unique waterscapes that exist around the world and are driven by high densities of dinoflagellate algae, such as Pyrodinium bahamense. Local to ASLO 2027, Vieques, Puerto Rico, harbors the brightest bioluminescent bay in the world. Ecotourism and interest in the bay bring millions of dollars annually to the small island community. Despite interest in bioluminescent bays and wonders around the world, relatively little is known about why certain bays are brighter than others or what causes the loss of bioluminescence in certain bays. There is a need to better understand the processes governing the growth and stability of the bioluminescent algae that thrive in these bay environments. We invite submissions related to research on bioluminescent algae from a range of methods, from culture-based to environment-based experiments. In addition, a goal of this session is to connect scientists, managers, and stewards of these bays, among other stakeholders. We envision a session where we collaborate to better understand the bioluminescent algae that drives tourism and ignite curiosity in all.

Keywords: bioluminescence, Pyrodinium, dinoflagellate, Vieques,

SS42 Aquatic Deoxygenation and Microbes Across Domains of Life (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Luciana Santoferrara, Hofstra University ([email protected])
Johana Rotterova, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez ([email protected])

Deoxygenation of aquatic environments is expanding globally due to anthropogenic nutrient enrichment and warming, with negative effects on macroorganisms and ecosystem services. Bacterial, archaeal, and eukaryotic microbes play a central role in the onset, persistence, and consequences of deoxygenation through their contributions to oxygen consumption and nutrient cycling. Increased inputs of nitrogen and/or phosphorus in coastal marine and inland freshwater environments stimulate a variety of microbial metabolisms that can deplete oxygen in the water and underlying sediment. As deoxygenation intensifies, facultative and obligate anaerobes, whether free-living or engaged in symbiotic associations, drive important biogeochemical processes. Some of these reactions produce toxic compounds (sulfide) or greenhouse gasses (methane, nitrous oxide), thereby generating additional ecological impacts and potential positive feedbacks on climate change.

While many microorganisms are adapted to low oxygen levels or to anoxia, the fitness of obligate aerobes may be profoundly affected by intensifying deoxygenation. Microaerophilic and anaerobic microbes are well-adapted to oxygen deficiency in hypoxic and anoxic environments, often through metabolic specialization and syntrophic interactions. In contrast, the strategies that enable obligate aerobes to persist under suboptimal oxygen conditions remain poorly understood. Emerging evidence suggests that symbiotic interactions between prokaryotic and eukaryotic partners can facilitate metabolic cross-feeding, enhance tolerance to fluctuating oxygen concentrations, and expand ecological niches in oxygen-depleted environments.

Despite the accelerating expansion of oxygen-deficient environments, we are far from understanding the diversity and evolution of life adapted to long-term hypoxia. The urgency of deoxygenation as an important global change has sparked exciting research on microbial metabolisms and interactions across the oxygenation gradient in natural and experimental settings. This session welcomes research on marine and freshwater archaea, bacteria and/or microbial eukaryotes in hypoxic or anoxic environments, with a focus on community ecology, associated biogeochemical processes, evolutionary adaptations, and ecosystem-scale consequences of microbial activity under oxygen limitation.

Keywords: Bacteria, Archaea, Protists, Hypoxia, Anaerobiosis

SS43 Multistressor Influences on Coastal Ecosystems (ORAL, POST)

Dianne Greenfield, City University of New York ([email protected])
Penny Vlahos, University of Connecticut ([email protected])

Coastal waters are dynamic areas of change with strong biogeochemical gradients and seasonal shifts. These gradients are accompanied by changes in the species composition including abundances of associated microbiota, particularly phytoplankton and bacteria. While substantial effort has been placed on understanding how individual stressors and episodic events (such as nutrients, alkalinity, pH, as well as physical drivers including temperature and precipitation) affect plankton, comparatively less is known about their combined influences on coastal ecosystems. The interaction of these various stressors on ecosystems is complex and yet critical to unravel for adaptive planning to minimize loss of keystone species and reduce the risk of impairments such as harmful algal blooms and hypoxia. This session highlights studies that not only identify individual stressors but also consider how they operate in tandem with other co-occurring stressors in coastal and estuarine environments. We welcome talks describing field surveys, experiments (lab or field-based), as well as models that predict the ecological outcome of synergistic environmental stressors on microbial (bacteria, phytoplankton, viruses) communities.

Keywords: multi-stressors, phytoplankton, acidification, harmful algal blooms, eutrophication

SS44 Marine Food Webs in a Changing Ocean: Understanding Interactions of Multiple Stressors across Ecological Responses (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Kevin Ugwu Hernández, Roskilde University ([email protected])
Sinja Rist, Technical University of Denmark ([email protected])
Kristian Syberg, Roskilde University ([email protected])

Marine ecosystems are exposed to an increasing range of interacting pressures. Ocean warming, acidification, plastic pollution, and chemical contaminants rarely occur in isolation, yet experimental and monitoring frameworks frequently evaluate them as single drivers. This session welcomes work that integrates climate-related drivers with pollution, including microplastics and nanoplastics, plastic additives, metals, persistent organic pollutants, PFAS, emerging contaminants, and complex environmental mixtures. A central goal of the session is to move beyond describing exposure toward understanding stressor interactions and ecological consequences. Under which conditions do stressors act additively, synergistically, or antagonistically? How do changes in temperature, pH, oxygen, food availability, and contaminant exposure alter ingestion, depuration, growth, reproduction, behavior, and survival? This session will bring together researchers working across marine food webs to examine how multiple stressors affect organism performance, trophic interactions, pollutant transfer through food webs, and ecosystem resilience. We invite contributions based on field observations, long term monitoring, multifactorial experiments, mesocosms, ecotoxicology, and ecosystem modelling that address stressor interactions. We welcome contributions addressing the full trophic spectrum, from microbial communities, phytoplankton, and zooplankton to fish, seabirds, and marine mammals. Studies from tropical, temperate, and polar systems are encouraged, as are those that connect pelagic, benthic, coastal, and open ocean perspectives. The session will emphasize studies that identify mechanisms, thresholds, multispecies testing and key interactions. Contributions combining environmental realism with mechanistic insight are especially encouraged, including studies using realistic particles, chemical mixtures, or local species. Highly relevant are also presentations linking laboratory experiments with field evidence, or translating results into risk assessment, conservation, management, and environmental policy. This session will provide a forum for cross disciplinary discussion on how multiple stressors shape marine food webs. Contributions from early career researchers and from underrepresented regions or understudied marine systems will be particularly considered. The session will help identify where evidence is robust, where uncertainty remains, and which experimental and monitoring designs are best suited to predict aquatic food web responses under future environmental conditions. Ultimately, it aims to support improved risk assessment, conservation, management, and policy for aquatic ecosystems facing interacting global and local pressures.

Keywords: Global change, emerging contaminants, risk assessment, ecosystem impacts, multifactorial

SS45 Cyanobacterial Surprises: Exploring Unexpected Blooms and Unraveling Their Causes (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Kaitlin L. Reinl, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ([email protected])
Rebecca Gorney, United States Geological Survey ([email protected])
Kevin C. Rose, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ([email protected])

Cyanobacterial blooms are increasingly appearing in places where we simply haven't been looking closely enough. Reports from cold and oligotrophic lakes, benthic mats, and other under‑monitored settings reveal gaps in our current understanding of bloom dynamics and cyanotoxin production. These unexpected ecological events draw attention to processes that often escape routine monitoring, including subtle nutrient exchanges, benthic–pelagic coupling, hydrodynamic transport, organic nutrient pools, and the physiological and trait‑based flexibility that allows cyanobacteria to occupy a wide range of environmental niches. Yet, despite the growing number of observations, scientific attention remains uneven, and many fundamental questions persist about ecological processes and risks to waterbody users. This session invites contributions that document surprising or under‑recognized cyanobacterial blooms, as well as studies that illuminate the processes enabling them. We welcome new observations, long‑term records, experimental or physiological insights, trait‑based perspectives, hydrodynamic or ecosystem modeling, and macrosystem analyses that help explain why blooms arise in places not traditionally considered bloom‑prone. By assembling evidence across systems and approaches, this session aims to refine conceptual models, highlight overlooked drivers, and broaden the scientific community's view of the conditions under which cyanobacterial blooms can emerge.

Keywords: cyanobacteria, bloom, oligotrophic, winter, benthic

SS46 Revisiting Paradigms in Limnology and Oceanography: A Fresh Take on Old Ideas (ORAL, POST)

Meredith Holgerson, Cornell University ([email protected])
Kathy Stenehjem, Cornell University ([email protected])
Thad Scott, Baylor University ([email protected])
Michael Meyer, USGS ([email protected])

Limnology and oceanography have long been shaped by influential paradigms– key concepts, models, and assumptions that guide how we understand, study, and manage aquatic systems. Yet, many of these concepts were developed decades ago, and modern approaches are challenging, supporting, refining, and sometimes overturning these long-standing ideas. In this session, we invite speakers to revisit classic paradigms and critically examine how they have evolved.

We encourage speakers to introduce a foundational idea or assumption that has shaped aquatic research and/or management. Speakers will then explore how new evidence or methodologies have altered our understanding of that paradigm. In some cases, new findings may reinforce and strengthen established ideas. In others, they may reveal overlooked mechanisms, identify exceptions, or suggest new frameworks for understanding aquatic ecosystems.

We seek presentations that span the breadth of the aquatic sciences. Topics may include, but are not limited to, paradigms on nutrient limitation, food web theory, ecosystem metabolism, carbon cycling, biodiversity-ecosystem function, thermal mixing dynamics, phytoplankton succession, regime shifts, microbial ecology, and scaling relationships. We particularly encourage talks that bridge disciplines, challenge conventional wisdom, or identify assumptions that have persisted despite or perhaps because of new evidence.

By bringing together researchers from across the aquatic sciences, this session aims to foster reflection on how scientific understanding changes over time, where the field is headed next, and how we train the next generation of scientists. The goal is to create a thought-provoking session that addresses the value of classic concepts and opportunities for reimagining them.

Keywords: Limnological theory, Emerging paradigms, Big ideas, Aquatic science,

SS47 Foundations of Aquatic Ecology (ORAL, POST)

Rachel Bowes, Emporia University ([email protected])
Natalia Lopez Figueroa, Gulf of America Coastal Ocean Observing System, Texas A&M University ([email protected])
Jonathan Miller, Ecological Society of America ([email protected])

This session will highlight the intellectual foundations of aquatic ecology while connecting classic ecological concepts to contemporary research and future directions in limnology and oceanography. In essence: What have we done, what is in the works, and where are we headed in aquatic ecology in waterscapes under pressure. In this session, we propose to invite contributions that revisit foundational studies, synthesize the influence of pioneering researchers, trace how major ecological ideas have evolved through aquatic science, and demonstrate how these concepts are being applied to present-day environmental challenges. Topics may include, but are not limited to, trophic dynamics, river-ocean dynamics, habitat connectivity, food-web structure, and cross-ecosystem subsidies.

The main goal of this session is to create an intergenerational conversation among established researchers, mid-career scientists, early-career researchers, and students. Talks may feature historical perspectives, conceptual syntheses, empirical studies, methodological advances, and applied case studies that show how aquatic ecology continues to inform management, restoration, conservation, and policy. We especially encourage presentations that connect ecological theory across freshwater, estuarine, coastal, and marine systems, as well as work that bridges foundational ecological research with emerging tools such as long-term ecological monitoring, remote sensing, environmental DNA, ecosystem modeling, and community-engaged science.

Keywords: Aquatic ecology, Ecosystems, Waterscapes, Trophic dynamics, Connectivity

SS48 The Next Frontier: Generating, Harmonizing, and Synthesizing Data Treasure Troves to Address Fundamental Ecological Questions (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Megan Berberich, Michigan Technological University ([email protected])
Michael Meyer, USGS ([email protected])
Rachel Pilla, Oak Ridge National Laboratory ([email protected])
Lienne Sethna, St. Croix Watershed Research Station ([email protected])
Chris Solomon, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies ([email protected])
Emily Stanley, University of Wisconsin-Madison ([email protected])

Data synthesis is a powerful ecological tool. The integration of data and interpretations from multiple individual studies into cohesive datasets facilitates broader exploration of spatial and temporal patterns than can be abstracted from individual studies alone. Within the aquatic sciences, synthesis products have been used to address a range of topics that span from regional to global scales and have resulted in the generation and refinement of global estimates for numerous carbon and nitrogen process rates across aquatic habitats, spatiotemporal patterns of zooplankton community composition, and the elemental content of freshwater and marine plants and animals. For example, key data synthesis products and efforts include numerous Global Lake Ecological Network (GLEON) projects, the global database of chlorophyll-a in rivers, lakes, and estuaries (OLIGOTREND), the Global Lake Metabolism Repository (GLAMR), the Global dataset of nitrogen fixation rates across inland and coastal waters, the Global Aggregation of Stream Silica (GlASS), the global database of organismal elemental stoichiometry across inland waters (Limno-STOICH), and the LAGOS research platforms, among many others. These efforts are facilitated by rapid growth in data availability, emerging technologies, expanded computing/data processing capabilities, and the support for synthesis through initiatives such as the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), Environmental Data Science Innovation and Impact Laboratory (ESIIL), Research Coordination Networks, and the John Wesley Powell Center for Environmental Synthesis and Analysis. Synthesis efforts allow us to re-evaluate existing concepts and develop new understanding into cohesive narratives about the ecological dynamics of aquatic ecosystems across a range of spatial and temporal scales. To build a conversation around these synergistic developments between environmental synthesis and emerging data capabilities in the aquatic sciences, this session invites contributors to share how they use one or a combination of expansive, harmonized datasets, remote sensing, data science tools, modeling, artificial intelligence, and/or open science practices toward the goal of increased understanding in limnology, oceanography, hydrology, or ecology through synthesis across spatiotemporal scales. Synthesis methods including, but not limited to, meta-analysis, modeling, and spatial comparisons are welcome. We invite contributions from both ad hoc efforts and multi-year grant funded initiatives, and encourage submissions from all aquatic processes, ecosystem types, and topics. While submissions may stem from methodological and technical hurdles encountered when working with many of these tools and methods, we especially seek submissions that focus on how their efforts address fundamental questions in the aquatic sciences.

Keywords: synthesis, data harmonization, open science, upscaling,

SS49 The Fate of Phytoplankton Blooms: Ecological, Biogeochemical, and Societal Consequences of Bloom Removal (ORAL, POST)

Mina Bizic, TU Berlin ([email protected])
Danny Ionescu, TU Berlin ([email protected])
Moshe Harel, Blue Green Water Technologies ([email protected])
Gad Weiss, Blue Green Water Technologies ([email protected])
Elad Levintal, Ben Gurion University ([email protected])

Phytoplankton blooms are increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity worldwide in response to nutrient enrichment, climate change, and hydrological alteration. Persistent blooms can impair water quality, threaten drinking water supplies, reduce recreational value, disrupt ecosystem functioning, and, in some cases, produce potent toxins. As a result, researchers, governments, utilities, and water managers increasingly invest in bloom removal and remediation strategies.

Successful bloom mitigation has the potential to eliminate toxic blooms, increase biodiversity, and improve water quality. In contrast, it can also alter nutrient cycling, oxygen dynamics, food-web interactions, sediment processes, and the trajectory of ecosystem recovery. These broader ecological implications of biomass fate remain poorly understood. Depending on the management approach, biomass may be transferred to sediments, degraded in the water column, and/or processed through aquatic food webs. Each of these outcomes has its own ecological and biogeochemical consequences.

Growing evidence also suggests that bloom mitigation may influence carbon cycling and greenhouse gas dynamics. Management actions can affect carbon sequestration, carbon dioxide emissions, methane and nitrous oxide production, and other climate-relevant processes, yet the magnitude and persistence of these effects remain poorly understood. Better mechanistic understanding, improved modelling, and more robust methodologies are needed to integrate water-quality, ecological, and climate objectives into scientifically defensible management frameworks.

This session invites contributions examining the ecological, biogeochemical, technological, and societal consequences of phytoplankton bloom mitigation. We welcome studies from freshwater, estuarine, and marine environments, including field observations, experiments, modelling efforts, long-term monitoring, and synthesis studies. Topics may include biomass fate, nutrient and carbon cycling, greenhouse gas dynamics, ecosystem recovery, management effectiveness, unintended consequences of remediation, ecosystem services, and opportunities to incorporate environmental and climate benefits into restoration planning and financing. By bringing together researchers and practitioners from diverse disciplines, this session aims to advance a more holistic understanding of bloom removal outcomes and their implications for sustainable aquatic ecosystem management.

Keywords: Lake, estuary, coastal remediation, bloom mitigation, greenhouse gas budget, algal biomass,

SS50 Omics Approaches to Understanding Macrofauna Responses to Environmental Change (ORAL, POST)

Antrelle Clark, Auburn University ([email protected])
Chelsea Fowler, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science - UMCES ([email protected])

Environmental change is rapidly reshaping aquatic ecosystems, shifting species distributions and interactions, and altering the physiological performance of individual organisms. Molecular approaches are transforming our ability to resolve the mechanisms underlying biological responses to stressors such as warming, salinity shifts, deoxygenation, acidification, pollution, and other extreme events. By connecting molecular responses to organismal performance, population dynamics, and ecosystem resilience, these tools offer insight with direct implications for biodiversity conservation, food security, and resource management under climate change. This session welcomes studies applying transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, epigenomics, metabarcoding, eDNA, metagenomics, or integrated multi-omics to investigate how aquatic macrofauna respond to climatic and environmental drivers. We are especially interested in work that links multiple molecular layers, or that connects molecular signals to organismal performance and population-level responses, including physiological stress responses, developmental and cross-generational plasticity, adaptation and resilience, disease ecology, host–microbiome interactions that influence organismal performance under environmental change, and environmentally driven changes in community composition and species interactions. Studies that integrate molecular data with measures of growth, reproduction, survival, behavior, or other indicators of organismal performance under environmental change are particularly encouraged. We encourage studies that pair molecular tools with complementary methods such as ecological observations, remote sensing, physiological measurements, and biogeochemical analyses. Contributions describing methodological advances that address the challenges of data collection, sample processing, data analysis, and integrative analyses are also welcome. By bringing together researchers across environmental physiology, molecular ecology, limnology, estuarine and marine science, oceanography, environmental monitoring, and ecosystem management, this session aims to demonstrate how omics can provide mechanistic insight into biological responses to environmental change and strengthen our capacity to monitor, predict, and manage the resilience of aquatic species and ecosystems.

Keywords: `-omics, ecophysiology, environmental change, stress response, molecular mechanisms

SS51 Tropical Reservoirs, a Delicate Balancing Act: Meeting Societal Needs Under Increasing Climate and Land Cover Change Pressures (ORAL, POST)

Brent Murry, West Virginia University ([email protected])
Maria de Lourdes Olmeda Marrero, Puerto Rico Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Division of Sportfish Recreation ([email protected])
Valentine Sivico Marinelly, West Virginia University ([email protected])
Gaspar Pons Cintron, Puerto Rico Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Division of Sportfish Recreation ([email protected])
Heather Walsh, U.S. Geological Survey, Eastern Ecological Science Center ([email protected])
Miguel Garcia-Bermudez, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ([email protected])

Water reservoirs pose many complex natural resource management challenges as growing societal pressures increase the need for flood control, hydroelectric power generation, and municipal water supplies; yet achieving these goals is often accompanied by severe negative ecological impacts related to connectivity and interruption of natural flow regimes, among others. Compounding these issues are changing weather patterns and land cover that collectively increase water temperature and sedimentation and alter/reduce available water supplies - exacerbating the conflict between human needs and sustaining historic natural ecological processes. While this is a growing, worldwide dilemma, it may be particularly acute in tropical reservoirs that are already near upper thermal thresholds for many ecological processes and where growing populations alter surrounding land cover impacting critical ecological services. This session will explore (1) current and anticipated future management challenges associated with changing climate conditions and land cover change; (2) how these challenges will affect water quality and subsistence / recreational fisheries; (3) innovative approaches and tools to better understand tropical reservoirs and develop enhanced resilience; and (4) explore scientific and more broadly societal views and ethical considerations to future reservoir management. This session will highlight case studies from the conference's host nation, Puerto Rico, but also seeks to include global contributions to enhance the scope and spectrum of potential solutions. The session will end in a facilitated group discussion among the speakers and audience focused on identifying common science needs and sharing insights into the ethical considerations of reservoir management and how, as scientists and managers, we can increase public knowledge and transparency surrounding management goals, decisions, and outcomes.

Keywords: Global change, Climate adaptation, Recreational fisheries, Ecosystem services, Renewable energy

SS52 Plastics Across the Aquatic Continuum: Distribution, Fate, and Impacts (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Samantha Ladewig, University of Auckland ([email protected])
Aron Stubbins, Northeastern University ([email protected])
Zhanfei Liu, University of Texas ([email protected])
Jordan Cisco, University of Texas ([email protected])
Andresa Lima, Northeastern University ([email protected])

Plastic pollution is a pervasive contaminant throughout the aquatic continuum that interacts with biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem functioning, and food-web dynamics. This session invites interdisciplinary contributions examining the sources, distribution, transformation, fate, and impacts of plastics across aquatic ecosystems. We welcome studies addressing how plastics enter and move through aquatic environments, including land and maritime sources, transport processes, and large-scale observational or modelling approaches. Contributions focused on methodological advances in sampling, detection, characterization, and standardization of micro- and nano-plastics (MNPs) and associated additives are particularly encouraged. We also seek presentations exploring environmental fate and transformation of plastics across freshwater, riverine, lacustrine, estuarine, coastal, pelagic, and benthic ecosystems. Relevant topics include fragmentation, weathering, photochemical and microbial degradation, biofouling, aggregation, sedimentation, resuspension, burial in sediments, shoreline deposition, and interactions with natural organic matter. We further encourage submissions regarding ecological and biogeochemical consequences of plastics across aquatic ecosystems. Topics may include, but are not limited to, toxicity and physiological impacts, vectoring or leaching of xenobiotics and additives, microbial colonization and gene transport, interactions with particulate organic matter and carbon export, effects on primary productivity and microbial processes, and the role of plastics in aquatic carbon cycling. This session aims to foster collaboration and strengthen the growing plastics research community within the aquatic continuum by bringing together researchers working across disciplines and ecosystems. We hope to identify common methodological challenges, promote greater standardization in approaches for detecting and characterizing plastics and associated contaminants, and encourage integration of observational, experimental, and modelling studies. We aim to improve understanding of the role of plastics in aquatic ecosystem functioning and biogeochemical cycling, identify key knowledge gaps and research priorities, and stimulate new collaborations that will advance the field.

Keywords: microplastics, nanoplastics, marine biogeochemistry, plastic transport and fate, carbon cycling

SS53 Applied Geochemical and Biological Proxies to Estimate Temporal/Spatial Anthropogenic Change in Aquatic Environments (ORAL, POST)

Michael Martinez-Colon, Florida A&M University ([email protected])
Warner Ithier-Guzman, Daytona State University ([email protected])

Freshwater and marine ecosystems are negatively impacted by habitat encroachment and degradation. These anthropogenic disturbances pose an escalating and multi-faceted threat frequently culminating in severed hydrologic regimes coupled with catastrophic declines in localized biodiversity. Aside from traditional physicochemical water/sediment quality monitoring, methodologies offer high levels of analytical precision for specific chemical constituents, however inherently present significant limitations; namely, they provide only transient snapshots of environmental conditions and regularly fail to capture the long-term, cumulative, and synergistic ecological impacts of multiple concurrent stressors. To address this critical diagnostic limitation, researchers have utilized multiple proxies (geochemical and biological) to assess environmental health conditions. Moreover, efforts have been implemented to mitigate anthropogenic disturbances by restoring water bodies, and associated sediments, to normal or historical background or "pre-impact" (i.e., before anthropogenic pollution) environmental health conditions. By combining the geochemical signature of the aged (e.g., radiochemical/palynology dating) sediments, the local "pre-impact" condition can be determined. Deviation from current conditions will allow a correct determination on the evolution of the environmental health conditions of a water body, and if possible (depending on sedimentation rates) dating back to pre-industrial times.

Overall, findings reveal a profound negative correlation between increased indices of anthropogenic disturbance and the structural and functional integrity of the target bioindicator communities. Aquatic environments subjected to high anthropogenic pressures (e.g., urban, industrial, agricultural) exhibit ecological turnovers related to the negative shift in the ecological response of habitat-sensitive taxa (e.g., bacteria, protists, cnidarians), which was accompanied by a clear, corresponding proliferation of pollution-tolerant, opportunistic species. These distinct bioindicator community shifts closely mirrored measured fluctuations in single or multiple antagonistic stressors such as nutrification, sediment loading, as well as changes in the fate and transport of heavy metal.

We invite contributions related to riverine, estuarine, and marine environments, and their interconnectedness, associated with anthropogenic alterations to its associated watersheds. These contributions are not limited to sedimentation/deforestation, dredging, bioaccumulation, biomagnification, and radionuclides among others. In addition, this session involves contributions from researchers and end-users (e.g., policy makers, resource managers, non-profits). The added value of the "end-user" is instrumental for the cross-correlation between: (1) historical environmental health changes and (2) knowledge of applied restoration efforts. This new applied information, based on the historical framework (coupled with current conditions), will benefit the "end-user" since it will provide the tools for proper informed decision-making process for redirecting and/or initiating restoration efforts (e.g., reducing a current impact) in localized areas where the environmental health conditions.

Keywords: pollution, bioindicators, environmental health, impact assessment,

SS54 The Biological Carbon Pump in the Current and Future Ocean (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Britni Livar, Arizona State University ([email protected])
Susanne Neuer, Arizona State University ([email protected])

The biological carbon pump, a key component of the global carbon cycle, transfers carbon fixed by phytoplankton in the surface ocean to deeper waters. Through particle aggregation, vertical zooplankton migration, and physical mixing, organic carbon can be sequestered in the deep ocean over timescales of hundreds to thousands of years. However, climate-related stressors, including rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, ocean warming, ocean acidification, and deoxygenation, are impacting the efficiency and capacity of the biological carbon pump. This session will delve into the drivers of the biological carbon pump and explore how they will change under future ocean conditions.

A particular focus of the session will be emerging methodologies transforming our ability to observe and predict biological carbon pump dynamics. Advances in autonomous observing platforms, in situ oceanographic measurements, satellite remote sensing, mesocosm experiments, and numerical modeling are providing unprecedented insights into carbon cycling across a range of spatial and temporal scales. Contributions that integrate observations, experiments, and models to improve the understanding and prediction of carbon export processes are especially encouraged.

This session aims to synthesize current knowledge, identify critical research gaps, and prioritize future study directions on the biological carbon pump and carbon export. We will explore how observations and experiments spanning multiple spatial and temporal scales can be integrated into global biogeochemical models to improve climate predictions and estimates of carbon export.

By bringing together researchers from oceanography, biogeochemistry, microbial ecology, aquatic biology, and related disciplines, we seek to highlight recent advances, emerging questions, and innovative approaches that improve our understanding of the biological carbon. As we face unprecedented environmental challenges, it is essential to better define the capabilities and limitations of the biological carbon pump to improve climate projections and guide effective stewardship of marine ecosystems in a rapidly changing ocean.

Keywords: Biological carbon pump, Carbon export, Ocean carbon cycle, Future ocean, Particle transformation

SS55 Grazing Dynamism: How Shifting Consumer-Resource Interactions Will Reshape Future Waterscapes (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Sophie McCoy, Univeristy of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ([email protected])
Joshua Manning, University of Colorado Boulder ([email protected])

Grazing interactions are fundamental drivers of aquatic ecosystem structure, function, and resilience, across marine, estuarine, and freshwater systems alike. These interactions are not static: grazer abundance, behavior, distribution, and per-capita impact are all sensitive to both biotic change (predator loss, range shifts, disease, competition, invasive species) and abiotic change (warming, acidification, deoxygenation, altered hydrology, and shifts in productivity and circulation). As these pressures intensify and interact, grazing regimes are likely to shift in ways that fundamentally alter the trajectory of aquatic ecosystems, determining whether systems such as macrophyte beds, coral reefs, and phytoplankton communities persist, transition, or collapse. This session invites contributions that explore how grazing interactions are changing, and will continue to change, in response to environmental forcing across marine and freshwater systems, and how these shifts cascade to influence the broader response of aquatic ecosystems to global change. We welcome studies spanning all grazers and habitats, integrating empirical, experimental, theoretical, and modeling approaches. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): range shifts or invasive species and novel grazer-resource encounters; thermal and physiological controls on grazing rate and efficiency; behavioral plasticity in foraging; trophic cascades and the loss or gain of top-down control; grazer-mediated resistance or facilitation of habitat transitions; the emergence of novel grazing environments, such as algal-dominated reefs or persistent blooms, and how these altered substrates in turn reshape foraging behavior and ecological function; and the role of grazing in determining ecosystem resilience, tipping points, or recovery potential. A particular emphasis is placed on the reciprocal and bidirectional nature of these relationships, examining both how environmental change shapes grazer behavior and how that behavior in turn mediates community responses to change. By bringing together researchers working across grazer taxa, ecosystems, and methodological approaches, spanning marine and freshwater science, this session aims to build a predictive understanding of how altered grazing will shape the aquatic waterscapes of the future, and to identify priorities for incorporating grazing dynamics into ecosystem models and management frameworks.

Keywords: grazing, herbivory, trophic interactions, global change,

SS56 Freshwater Ecosystems Under Agricultural Pressure: Management and Sustainable Ecological Production (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Vivian Yorojo Moreno, Instituto de Limnología"Dr. Raúl A. Ringuelet" (ILPLA) (CONICET-UNLP) ([email protected])

The intensification of agriculture exerts critical pressure on freshwater ecosystems worldwide. While aquatic systems in developing regions are particularly vulnerable due to limited environmental policies and technological infrastructure, this challenge is a global phenomenon. Agricultural runoff leads to severe ecotoxicological impacts on native aquatic taxa, altering food webs and compromising essential ecosystem services.

Given this critical environmental situation, we invite multidisciplinary research from diverse freshwater systems—including rivers, lakes, wetlands, and reservoirs—across all geographical regions. This session aims to bridge the gap between ecotoxicological risk assessment and sustainable management.

We especially welcome studies that propose innovative production initiatives -such as the use of natural bioreactors or ecological aquaculture- that foster ecological resilience and socio-economic transitions. We encourage contributions that link scientific risk assessment with community-engaged, sustainable practices to promote the health of aquatic environments globally.

Keywords: Shallow Lakes, Ecotoxicology, Sustainable Aquaculture, Agrochemicals, Global South

SS57 Composition, Source, and Fate of Organic Matter Across the Land–Ocean Aquatic Continuum (ORAL, POST)

Jennifer Bowen, Georgia Institute of Technology ([email protected])
Benjamin Granzow, Scripps Institution of Oceanography ([email protected])
Aleksandar Goranov, Old Dominion University ([email protected])
Kaijun Lu, Coastal Carolina University ([email protected])
Margot White, The University of British Columbia ([email protected])

The organic matter present in all surface waters on Earth plays a critical role in aquatic biogeochemical cycles, fuels microbial metabolism, and stores as much carbon as the atmospheric carbon reservoir. Because the chemical composition of organic matter is an important control on its reactivity and fate, a wide range of analytical approaches including ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, natural abundance isotopic analyses, and fluorescence spectroscopy, have been employed to trace its sources and transformations along the land–ocean continuum. Applying these approaches to environmental samples requires overcoming significant logistical challenges, including high salinity, sample volatility and degradation, low organic matter concentrations, and last but not least, complexity in chemical structure and composition that is difficult to resolve using one approach. Despite these challenges, our understanding of organic matter is continuing to evolve as the community develops new analytical techniques and integrates cutting-edge informatics tools, including emerging artificial intelligence-based approaches, to improve organic matter characterization.

In this session, we welcome studies that integrate various analytical approaches to characterize the composition, sources, and/or fates of organic matter along the land–ocean continuum. We also welcome contributions focused on novel techniques for isolating, concentrating, and purifying organic matter prior to analysis, or for assigning chemical characteristics to natural organic molecules. We hope that by highlighting analytical advances made throughout the aquatic continuum across salinity and organic carbon concentration gradients, the insights gained may inform future efforts as a community to characterize organic matter in a changing environment. Submissions by students and early career researchers, and researchers from underrepresented identities are highly encouraged.

Keywords: dissolved organic matter, particulate organic matter, land-ocean continuum, organic geochemistry, metabolomics

SS58 Groundwater–Surface Water Interactions Across the Land–Ocean Continuum (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

James Padilla Montalvo, Southern Cross University ([email protected])
Tristan McKenzie, Imperial College London ([email protected])
Bryan Rodriguez Colon, University of Kansas ([email protected])

Groundwater–surface water interactions play a fundamental role in regulating hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological processes across inland, coastal, and marine environments. Growing recognition of terrestrial and submarine groundwater discharge has advanced our understanding of water, nutrient, carbon, and elemental cycling across the land–ocean continuum, while highlighting the need to better understand the drivers and environmental implications of groundwater–surface water exchanges across pristine and impacted systems under climatic variability, land-use change, and other pressures. This session brings together researchers across all aquatic environments and spatial scales to investigate groundwater–surface water interactions using field observations, laboratory experiments, remote sensing, numerical modelling, statistical approaches, and machine learning. By highlighting transferable concepts, methodologies, and discoveries across terrestrial, coastal and marine systems, the session aims to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among limnologists, hydrogeologists, oceanographers, biogeochemists, ecologists, and environmental managers. Through these discussions, we hope to advance both fundamental understanding and practical applications of groundwater research in a rapidly changing world.

Keywords: Groundwater-surface water exchange, Biogeochemistry, Nutrient and carbon cycling, Submarine groundwater discharge, Land-ocean continuum

SS59 From Fire to Sediments: Sources, Transport Pathways, and Transformation of Pyrogenic Matter in Modern and Past Environments (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Siddhartha Sarkar, The University of Texas at Austin ([email protected])
Abdur Rahman, National Chung Cheng University ([email protected])
M Devaprasad, Indian Institute of Technology Madras ([email protected])

Pyrogenic matter, produced through the incomplete combustion of organic matter, is ubiquitous in the environment. Black carbon, a major component of pyrogenic matter, poses a threat to Earth's icy environments because of its warming effect. At the same time, it may act as a potential climate mitigator when buried and preserved in sediments over long timescales. Owing to its assumed refractory nature, black carbon has been widely used as a proxy for reconstructing paleofire events from sedimentary records. However, recent stable isotopic evidence has challenged the long-standing view of black carbon as highly refractory, suggesting that it may degrade along the land–ocean aquatic continuum. This has important implications for its use as a fire proxy and for understanding its role in long-term carbon sequestration and climate mitigation.

The terminology used to describe the carbonaceous fraction of pyrogenic matter, such as elemental carbon, black carbon, pyrogenic carbon, and refractory carbon, varies depending on the analytical method employed and the field of study, including atmospheric, soil, and aquatic sciences. To bridge different research domains and link the environmental transport of pyrogenic matter, a consensus needs to be established on the terminologies, and measurement protocols that would determine the fraction estimated and corresponding chemical characteristics. Black nitrogen, another understudied component of pyrogenic matter, also has potential applications in paleoclimate studies. However, its distribution, transport pathways, transformation processes, and preservation mechanisms remain poorly constrained.

This session aims to bridge the atmospheric, terrestrial, and aquatic perspectives on black carbon and black nitrogen research. We invite contributions addressing the distribution, transport, transformation, and environmental fate of pyrogenic matter using compositional and isotopic measurements, remote observations, experimental approaches, and modeling. Studies investigating degradation mechanisms and their effects on the isotopic composition of black carbon and black nitrogen are also encouraged.

Keywords: Black Carbon and Nitrogen, Carbonaceous Aerosols, Paleofire Reconstruction, Poly-aromatic Hydrocarbons, Stable isotopes and radiocarbon

SS60 Boron Chemistry and Stable Isotope Analysis of Scallops: Data Management and Analytical Techniques for Environmental Research (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Madoka Kondo, Society of Women in Marine Science, (and) Stony Brook University ([email protected])

Stable isotope analysis is a valuable tool for understanding environmental conditions, ecological change, and chemical processes in marine systems. These approaches can be applied to a wide range of marine organisms and materials to investigate questions related to ocean chemistry, habitat change, organism growth, and environmental stress. This includes scallops, corals, shells, sediments, and other biogenic carbonates. As analytical techniques continue to improve within the marine field, isotopes and trace element chemistry are becoming increasingly more important for reconstructing past and present marine conditions. This session invites research that uses boron chemistry, stable isotope analysis, trace element measurements, or related geochemical methods to study marine environments and organisms. The topics may include sample collection and preparation, data organization and management, mass spectrometry methods, isotope mapping, environmental monitoring, and applications of isotope data to ecological or chemical questions. Contributions may focus on specific organisms or regions, such as scallop populations in coastal bays to broader methodological advances that improve how isotope data are collected, analyzed, and interpreted. By bringing together studies from different marine systems and analytical approaches, this session will highlight how stable isotope techniques can improve our understanding of marine ecosystems and environmental change. The goal is to create a space for researchers to share methods, results, challenges, and new applications of isotope-based environmental research.

Keywords: Stable Isotope Analysis, Boron Chemistry, Peconic Bay, Long Island Sound,

SS61 Understanding Microbial Interactions and Roles in Ecosystem Processes through Applications of 'Omics Data (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Julian Damashek, Riverkeeper ([email protected])
Ashley Bulseco, University of New Hampshire ([email protected])
Frank Ferrer-Gonzalez, University of Washington ([email protected])
Marian Schmidt, Cornell University ([email protected])

A long-recognized challenge of environmental microbiology is understanding how specific microbes fit into their environmental contexts, which include heterogeneous chemical, physical, and biological components. Rapid technological and bioinformatic advances have provided many novel ways to assess in situ traits of aquatic microbes, such as diversity, abundance, and potential metabolism. Many techniques have necessarily focused on selected microbes of interest, such as comparing metagenome-assembled genomes or gene transcription data within one species across samples. Recent advances in laboratory techniques, field sampling methods, and computational analysis have facilitated greater use of 'omics-based methods to understand the links between aquatic microbes and other members of their ecological community, from interactions with other bacteria, phytoplankton, animals, or nearby human activity. This session will highlight research using 'omics and related data to understand how environmental microbes are part of this larger ecological context. We encourage submissions using a diversity of methods, including field-based, laboratory, computational, or modeling studies that incorporate microbial 'omics data. Furthermore, we take a broad view of "ecological interactions" and encourage submissions involving microbial interactions from across any scale of interest, from studies of "small-scale" microbial dynamics, such as bacterial-phytoplankton or microbe-virus interactions, to "large scale" interactions between microbes and other aspects of their ecological communities, such as human-driven eutrophication, ecosystem restoration, invasive species, or water treatment processes. Research questions may vary from basic research to applied case studies. This session seeks to highlight the breadth of application of microbial 'omics data for understanding aquatic microbial ecology, particularly how these large datasets can be used to understand how microbes drive and respond to their environment as part of dynamic communities and ecosystems.

Keywords: Microbiology, Omics, Genomics, Ecological interactions,

SS62 Physical Limnology in Waterscapes Under Pressure: Dynamics, Drivers, and Change (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Leon Boegman, Queen's University ([email protected])
Hugo Ulloa, University of Pennsylvania ([email protected])
Jason Olsthoorn, Queen's University ([email protected])

Physical processes regulate the structure and functioning of aquatic systems across the aquatic continuum, from ponds, lakes, reservoirs, and inland seas to coastal interfaces. As aquatic systems experience increasing pressure from climate change, altered hydrology, extreme events, watershed disturbance, and human management, understanding these physical controls is essential for predicting ecosystem response and identifying opportunities for sustainable solutions.

This session invites contributions that investigate the physical dynamics of aquatic systems across spatial and temporal scales, with particular interest in studies that connect physical processes to biological, chemical, and societal outcomes. We welcome field observations, laboratory experiments, remote sensing, theory, and numerical modelling approaches that reveal how physical limnology can improve understanding, prediction, and management of waterscapes under pressure.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Hydrodynamic processes including surface and internal waves, turbulence, stratification, circulation, sediment transport, resuspension and ice dynamics;
• Physical controls on oxygen, nutrients, contaminants, harmful algal blooms, greenhouse-gas exchange, and ecosystem metabolism;
• Advances in observational techniques, remote sensing, autonomous platforms, data assimilation, and numerical modelling;
• Applications of physical limnology to water-quality prediction, habitat assessment, ecosystem restoration, and resource management.

This session aims to foster conversations among limnologists, coastal oceanographers, and modelers to deepen our understanding of how the physics of lakes respond to and influence broader environmental systems.

Keywords: Physical Limnology, Hydrodynamics, Physical-biogeochemical coupling, Winter processes, Computational Fluid Dynamics

SS63 Gassy Waters 2.0: New Frontiers in Aquatic Gas Dynamics Across Sensors, Systems, and Scales (ORAL, POST)

Joseph Rabaey, Cornell University ([email protected])
Tonya Delsontro, University of Waterloo ([email protected])
Ellie Socha, Cornell University ([email protected])
Vanessa Czeszynski, University of Minnesota ([email protected])
Soren Brothers, Royal Ontario Museum/University of Toronto ([email protected])
Ruchi Bhattacharya, Cleveland State University ([email protected])
Emily Stanley, University of Wisconsin-Madison ([email protected])

Aquatic ecosystems, including ponds, lakes, streams, rivers, coastal zones, and human-made environments (e.g., hydroelectric reservoirs), play a vital role in the cycling and exchange of greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O). These gassy waters act as both sources and sinks of GHGs, as well as other gases like volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and trace pollutants. Gas dynamics are shaped by a complex interplay of biogeochemical, hydrological, and ecological processes which are spatially variable and temporally dynamic. Accurate and rapid gas measurements in both liquid and air phases are essential for understanding key biogeochemical processes and pollution. Recent years have seen rapid advances in our ability to measure, monitor, and model aquatic gases. Novel sensor technologies, membrane inlet mass spectrometry (MIMS), isotope-based approaches, eddy covariance systems, autonomous platforms, high-frequency monitoring networks, and remote sensing tools are generating unprecedented insights into gas production, consumption, transport, and emission across scales ranging from microbial hotspots to regional landscapes.

With Gassy Waters 2.0, we aim to build on a successful session at ASLO-SIL '26. We invite contributions that advance our understanding of gas-related processes across aquatic environments. We welcome studies spanning laboratory experiments, field investigations, long-term observations, sensor and methodological developments, data synthesis, machine learning applications, and modeling approaches. Topics may include, but are not limited to, controls on gas sources and sinks, spatial and temporal variability, gas transfer processes, methodological advances, and modeling efforts. By synthesizing recent findings from diverse systems and approaches, we aim to not only to showcase the latest discoveries, but also to evaluate how far the field has progressed and identify the key challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Whether your waters bubble, breathe, or burp — join us as we explore the next generation of aquatic gas research.

Keywords: GHG, Emission, Flux, Carbon, Methane

Education and Policy Sessions

EP01 How To' – Compiling Collective Knowledge to Reduce Barriers for First Timers (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Rita Franco-Santos, University of Western Australia ([email protected])
Laura Falkenberg, Adelaide University ([email protected])

Aquatic sciences professionals, especially students and those early in their career (jointly referred to as ECRs), often learn how to perform the many intricate activities necessary for the craft by doing them. For some, completing these tasks may be facilitated by direct guidance from someone with relevant expertise. For others, 'doing' entails not only the action itself, but also spending countless hours and potentially resources first trying to figure out how to do it. We have all struggled with a professional task at one moment or another – sometimes even when expert guidance was available. The Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin is a great vehicle for sharing knowledge with peers, especially first-timers, and has previously published pieces on incorporating science communication into graduate training, explaining the process of peer review, negotiating your salary, managing your time, among others. Scientists highly value such publications because they make their lives easier. The journal is actively seeking additional 'How to' pieces, to gather and compile undocumented knowledge on various topics in aquatic sciences that can then be used by professionals who need to perform a given task for the first time in their career (or are looking for a different way to approach a routine task). This session invites submissions from professionals at all career stages who have knowledge of a particular activity related to a career in aquatic sciences, such as how to: plan a field trip, create a sample tracking system, set up and run your own lab, organize a workshop, write a successful grant proposal, be a good mentor or mentee, among others. Talks given at this session will be considered for publication (if not already published) as a 'How to' piece in the Bulletin.

Keywords: skill-building, ECRs, fieldwork, laboratory, creativity

EP02 Undergraduate Research in Marine and Aquatic Sciences (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

David Fields, Bigelow Labs for Ocean Sciences ([email protected])
Hayley Schiebel, Suffolk University ([email protected])

Research opportunities are increasingly offered to undergraduate students and recent graduates to help them prepare for careers in marine and aquatic sciences. Presenting at meetings provides a natural next step in the transition from a student to a professional in aquatic sciences and offers insight into diverse career pathways in aquatic sciences. This session invites undergraduate and postbaccalaureate researchers to present their findings, receive constructive feedback from experienced scientists, and explore career paths in aquatic sciences.

We welcome first-time presenters and encourage mentors to attend for networking and potential graduate student recruitment. All research approaches including observational, experimental, computational, and modeling studies are encouraged. Both oral and poster presentations are welcomed. While advanced students should consider submitting to specialized sessions in their research area, all students are welcome to explore both options.

Keywords: Undergraduate, REU, Education

EP03 Reimagining the Sustainable Blue Economy: From Melting Glaciers to Thriving Oceans (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Mavis Adwoa Essilfie, Ocean Rock Base ([email protected])
Peter Teye Busumprah, Ocean Rock Base and Africa Ocean Alliance ([email protected])
Olusola Adeoye, Nature Cares Resources Centre ([email protected])

Aligned with the UN Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences (2025–2034) and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030), this session explores innovative and integrated solutions to address the interconnected challenges facing aquatic systems from mountain glaciers to the deep ocean. As climate change accelerates cryosphere loss, biodiversity decline, ecosystem degradation, and disruptions to water security, fisheries, and coastal livelihoods, there is an urgent need for collaborative approaches that strengthen resilience across the entire aquatic continuum.

This session will bring together youth leaders, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, scientists, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and development practitioners to examine how science, technology, Indigenous knowledge, and community-led action can drive sustainable blue economy transformation. Recognizing the connections between glaciers, rivers, lakes, wetlands, estuaries, coastal ecosystems, and oceans, the session will highlight solutions that bridge freshwater and marine systems while advancing climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development.

We invite contributions on biodiversity monitoring, blue carbon ecosystems, ecosystem restoration, sustainable fisheries, citizen science, geospatial technologies, climate-smart innovation, nature-based solutions, and community-driven environmental stewardship. Particular emphasis will be placed on approaches that generate actionable environmental intelligence, support evidence-based decision-making, and create equitable economic opportunities while protecting aquatic ecosystems.

By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and cross-sector collaboration, this session aims to identify scalable solutions, strengthen partnerships, and advance a shared vision for resilient waterscapes. Together, we will explore how innovative and inclusive approaches can transform climate and biodiversity challenges into opportunities for sustainability, prosperity, and healthy aquatic ecosystems worldwide.

Keywords: Ocean, Cryosphere, Fisheries

EP04 Sargassum Inundation Events: An Economic Opportunity (ORAL, POST)

Felix Martinez, NOAA ([email protected])
Sara Gonzalez, US Department of Energy ([email protected])
Mariana Leon-Perez, Mar Caribe Consulting, LLC ([email protected])
Lisamarie Carruba, NOAA (Retired) ([email protected])

Transitioning from reactive beach cleanups to proactive offshore harvesting would allow coastal management to intercept disruptive Sargassum mats before they rot nearshore, releasing toxic gases and suffocating marine life. This raw biomass can be valorized as a high-volume feedstock for lucrative commercial markets, including advanced biofuels, premium industrial alginates, and agricultural bio-stimulants. However, building a viable supply chain requires overcoming critical technical hurdles, such as utilizing advanced filtration to purify the seaweed of absorbed heavy metals like arsenic. The purpose of this session is to showcase the latest technological breakthroughs in Sargassum processing and map out the practical pathways required to transition this environmental crisis into a self-sustaining, circular blue economy. To drive this transition forward, the session will focus on the following key goals: 1) Optimize Industrial Scaling - Share data on the economic viability and efficiency of extracting commercial-grade alginates, scaling anaerobic digestion for local energy independence, and manufacturing safe agricultural fertilizers. 2) Navigate the Regulatory Landscape - Address the complex international permitting, environmental compliance, and legal frameworks necessary to formally establish and manage Sargassum as a recognized marine fishery. 3) Balance Harvesting with Conservation - Establish best practices for offshore interception that protect the pelagic species relying on floating weed mats as essential habitat, ensuring this new bioeconomy remains ecologically responsible. We invite biochemical/environmental engineers, resource managers, social and economic scientists, and blue economy entrepreneurs to join this session to explore the technological, safety, and legal frameworks essential for transforming harvested Sargassum into a viable commercial industry.

Keywords: Sargassum, SIEs, valorization, bioeconomy, management

EP05 Mobilizing Freshwater Science for Policy, Governance, and Water Diplomacy (ORAL, POST)

David Barrett, University of Calgary; United Nations University Hub @ UCalgary ([email protected])
Kerry Black, University of Calgary; United Nations University Hub @ UCalgary ([email protected])
Martyn Clark, University of Calgary; United Nations University Hub @ UCalgary ([email protected])
Rohit Ramchandani, United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health ([email protected])

Freshwater challenges are often most acute in places where the capacity to monitor, manage, and govern water systems is most constrained. Remote, rural, northern, Indigenous, island, and Global South communities face intensifying pressures from climate change, land-use change, biodiversity loss, pollution, infrastructure deficits, and competing water demands. Yet the scientific knowledge needed to support adaptation and policy action is often fragmented, inaccessible, poorly aligned with decision needs and timelines, or disconnected from the institutions responsible for implementation.

This session will examine how freshwater science can be more effectively linked to action in remote or underserved communities and the Global South. We invite contributions that explore how aquatic research is translated into practical decisions, policy development, community adaptation, and long-term governance capacity. Rather than focusing only on the production of scientific evidence, we hope to ask: what kinds of partnerships, institutions, knowledge systems, and communication pathways are needed for freshwater research to meaningfully support action?

A central premise of the session is that successful research-to-policy translation depends on collaboration across institution types. Universities play an important role in generating evidence and training future leaders, but they are rarely sufficient on their own. Think tanks, United Nations agencies, governments, Indigenous governments and organizations, NGOs, watershed organizations, community leaders, funders, and boundary organizations are often essential for translating research into policy, practice, and sustainable implementation. The session will look to highlight models of cross-institutional collaboration that connect scientific knowledge with the mandates, trust networks, and decision processes needed to produce change.

Potential topics include community-led freshwater monitoring, co-production of decision tools, science diplomacy, transboundary water cooperation, Indigenous and local knowledge systems, capacity sharing, research translation in low-resource settings, data sovereignty, policy entrepreneurship, boundary organizations, and the role of universities and UN-linked hubs in supporting community adaptation. Case studies may address municipal, regional, national, Indigenous, basin-scale, or international policy processes.

By focusing on remote communities, the Global South, and cross-institutional partnerships, this session will aim to help clarify how the aquatic science community can move from knowledge generation toward policy relevance, community resilience, and action-oriented freshwater governance.

Keywords: Freshwater governance, Adaptation, Knowledge Mobilization, Science Diplomacy, Science-policy interface

EP06 Strengthening Global Cooperation for Aquatic Ecosystem Science and Sustainability (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Peter Girguis, Harvard University ([email protected])
Melissa Omand, University of Rhode Island ([email protected])

Aquatic ecosystems face complex challenges that transcend political boundaries, including biodiversity loss, pollution, natural disasters, climate change, and overfishing. Many national funding agencies support scientists conducting research outside their countries' exclusive economic zones, including in areas beyond national jurisdiction, but do not provide support for foreign scientists. This and other structural and logistical barriers hinder collaboration within the global aquatic sciences community. Addressing these challenges requires new and innovative approaches to international collaboration that leverages the diverse expertise of the global community, promotes the sharing of infrastructure and coordinated observations, and fosters genuine, long-lasting, inclusive partnerships.

This session will highlight emerging international initiatives, networks, and research programs that are advancing science while generating tangible benefits for society. We welcome presentations that showcase novel collaborative approaches to monitoring, modeling, data sharing, capacity building, community engagement, and science-informed management across freshwater, estuarine, coastal, and marine systems. Contributions should address both successes and challenges in developing equitable and effective partnerships, with particular emphasis on lessons learned, innovative frameworks, and opportunities to strengthen global cooperation in support of resilient aquatic ecosystems and the communities that depend on them. We especially welcome contributions from students and early-career scientists who have led or participated in such programs.

Keywords: International, Collaboration, Resilience, Philanthropy, Mentoring

EP07 What Works in Research Training (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Erin Dolan, University of Georgia ([email protected])
Victoria Centurino, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute ([email protected])

Students often engage in research at the undergraduate and graduate level to prepare for and pursue careers in the ocean sciences. A growing body of research on undergraduate and graduate research is revealing "what works" in research training, including how research can be structured to promote various outcomes. This includes having opportunities to try research as a potential career path, develop research knowledge and skills, build an identity as a researcher, and confirm educational and career pursuits. This session will feature presentations on course-based undergraduate research experiences to scale up access to research; postbaccalaureate research education to gain additional research experience and prepare for graduate education; and interventions to promote effective mentoring and wellbeing of graduate students.

Keywords: research training, mentorship, student wellbeing, course-based undergraduate research experiences,

EP08 Experiential Research and Training in Coastal and Marine Sciences (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Paul Montagna, Texas A&M - Corpus Christi ([email protected])
David Hicks, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley ([email protected])

Experiential research enhances training in coastal and marine sciences by allowing students to translate theoretical concepts into hands-on practice and develop technical skills that enhance their readiness for the future workforce. Educational programs within these disciplines employ a variety of experiential research and training methods. For example, Cooperative Science Centers funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Educational Partnership Program train their graduate students through partnering with NOAA mentors for 3-month in-person internships where students perform research, gain technical skills, and real-world training on the application of science to solve problems addressing NOAA priorities. At the undergraduate level, the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates has supported summer research training opportunities in a variety of disciplines at academic institutions. This session invites contributions from sponsors, educators, and participants of programs that emphasize experiential research to train the next generation of coastal and marine scientists. The goal is to share practices and outcomes of these programs to strengthen their impacts moving forward.

Keywords: Research Training, Internships, Fisheries, Environmental Science, Water and Sediment Quality

EP09 Breaking Down Barriers to Ocean Science in K-12 Science Education (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Laura O'Dwyer, Boston College ([email protected])
Victoria Centurino, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ([email protected])
Ella Claire Walsh, Boston College ([email protected])
Mahima Nambiar, Boston College ([email protected])

Science teachers face systemic barriers to including non-terrestrial based science content in their classrooms. These barriers are structural: an already crowded curriculum, marine based content not being present in textbooks or state science standards, and a lack of training in teaching ocean science content. However, the ocean is not a supplementary topic. It is a topic that offers a unique opportunity to teach foundational concepts in general biology, chemistry, and the earth sciences through interdisciplinary connections. To correct this educational deficit, we must focus on opportunities that allow teachers to correct these barriers. This session focuses on actionable strategies to overcome these barriers that have allowed marine topics to be integrated into general science K-12 classrooms. We are specifically interested in identifying what works when attempting to bridge gaps between scientific researchers and classroom teachers. We invite abstracts from scientists, teachers, and school leaders that highlight perspectives from K-12 teachers on the barriers they face to including marine/aquatic science content in their classrooms, efforts that have integrated marine content into standard science curricula, and resources that bypass traditional barriers. We seek to prioritize work that highlights the empowerment of educators to teach critical ocean science content while maintaining mandated coverage of other topics.

Keywords: K-12 Ocean Science Education, Ocean Literacy, Interdisciplinary science, Scientist-educator collaborations,

EP10 Adventures, Challenges, and Benefits of Conducting International Collaborative Research (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Brittany Schieler, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography ([email protected])
Adina Paytan, University of California Santa Cruz ([email protected])
Susanne Menden-Deuer, University of Rhode Island ([email protected])

Aquatic sciences are increasingly global in nature, transcending political boundaries and requiring collaboration with international scientists and working in other countries. Planning and executing collaborative research projects overseas, however, is not trivial. Challenges include communicating with scientists in a different country, obtaining funding for international work, overcoming technical obstacles such as shipping and permits, and navigating language and cultural barriers. We invite participants of all career stages to share their experiences from both productive and not so successful adventures in conducting international collaborative research.

This session includes submissions by students who have participated in ASLO's "Limnology and Oceanography Research Exchange and Mentorship Experience (LOREX & ME)" program (funded by the National Science Foundation) which aims to foster international research collaboration and mentorship skills through professional development and a research exchange for U.S.-based graduate and undergraduate students. We welcome additional presentations on international collaboration related to funding, identifying collaborators, near-peer mentoring, executing projects, overcoming obstacles, developing teams, leveraging mutual advantages and infrastructure, handling difficulties, and successful outcomes, especially for early career researchers. We hope this session will help others avoid pitfalls, take advantage of opportunities, and increase likelihood of effective and fun international collaborations in the aquatic sciences.

Keywords: International Collaborations, Professional Development, Education, Students, Early Career

EP11 Advancing Scientific Rigor and Research Utility Through Community-Centered Aquatic Science (ORAL, POST)

Ajit Subramaniam, LDEO/Columbia University ([email protected])
Leanne Phelps, Columbia University ([email protected])

Waterscapes worldwide face unprecedented pressures, requiring research approaches that are both ecologically rigorous and socially impactful. Traditional research approaches have often been disconnected from the communities living within and relying upon these systems. This detachment frequently leads to critical data gaps, overlooked local ecological pressures, and scientific outputs that lack real-world utility for the people most affected. When scientists operate in isolation, they risk missing fine-scale environmental trends, historical baselines, and unique ecological insights known only to local inhabitants. Consequently, the resulting management recommendations can fail due to a lack of socio-ecological relevance and engagement.

Co-production research aims to address these systemic limitations by intentionally bringing together scientists, Indigenous knowledge holders, local communities, and stakeholders to collaboratively design, execute, and implement research. Rather than serving as a superficial add-on to existing projects, this collaborative framework has the potential to fundamentally improve the quality, accuracy, relevance, and overall effectiveness of the science itself. Co-produced research goes beyond "citizen science" in that the community is involved in all aspects of the research from developing the initial questions to the final interpretation of results, not just as a means of gathering data for researchers. Furthermore, by integrating diverse ways of knowing, researchers can build more comprehensive research methods and formulate hypotheses that directly address the most pressing environmental stressors.

Effective co-production requires researchers to proactively look beyond standard institutional frameworks before a project even begins. It relies on being grounded in local, place-based knowledge to understand who is affected by and interested in the science. Therefore, this session aims to move beyond generalized statements of community importance, focusing instead on concrete operational strategies, successes, and logistical challenges across diverse waterscapes (including freshwater, brackish, and marine systems).

We specifically welcome contributions addressing:

• Methodological Frameworks: How researchers build trust, share power, and integrate diverse knowledge systems, such as Traditional Ecological Knowledge alongside Western empirical science, while maintaining rigorous data collection standards.
• Impact on the Science: How community-centered research design and execution actively reshapes more relevant research questions, improves data quality, alters project scopes, or reveals novel ecological insights.
• Impact on Communities: How the research process affects local partners, including understanding and supporting local adaptive capacity, influencing policy changes, empowering local resource stewardship, and identifying or mitigating potential unintended burdens placed on communities navigating environmental change.

By sharing diverse experiences of co-produced research, this session aims to provide actionable insights that cultivate more ethical, inclusive, resilient, and high-impact research practices across waterscapes.

Keywords: Knowledge Co-Production, Co-produced research, Community Based Research, Citizen Science, Participatory Aquatic Sciences

EP12 ASLO Emerging Fellows: Professional Development for the Next Generation of Aquatic Scientists (LIGHT)

Jeanette Davis, Hampton University ([email protected])
Susanne Menden-Deuer, University of Rhode Island ([email protected])
Paul del Giorgio, Université du Québec à Montréal ([email protected])
Brittany Schieler, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography ([email protected])

The ASLO Emerging Fellows Program is designed to build confidence, access, and long-term community for the next generation of aquatic scientists. Notably, mentorship, collegiality and professional conduct are central to our training goals, building a well-rounded future-ready aquatic scientist cohort that excels in scientific but also professional skills. ASLO Emerging Fellows prepares the leaders of tomorrow who are scientifically excellent, with strong research capacity and the interpersonal skills to lead productive teams that overcome challenges and succeed in impacting aquatic sciences to the benefit of society. The name of the program links the training of excellent diverse early career aquatic scientists to the leaders in our field recognized as ASLO Fellows and Sustaining Fellows.

In keeping with ASLO's mission to foster a diverse, international community of aquatic scientists that promotes scientific excellence and stewardship of aquatic resources for the public interest, our scientific and professional society serves as a leader in career development. In collaboration with the Schmidt Ocean Coalition and the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, ASLO has launched the ASLO Emerging Fellows Program to support the future leaders of the aquatic sciences, entraining early career researchers from late undergraduates to early professionals in a year-round professional development program that provides foundational skills, career coaching and individualized mentoring. One aspect of the program is that some participants attend our scientific meeting with support from a strong mentor network. While ASLO Emerging Fellows present their research in regular sessions, we like to broaden the exposure to the community, and facilitate networking with potential employers, mentors or colleagues through an Lightening session.

In this Lightning session, students selected into the ASLO's Emerging Fellows Program will share their research and scientific interests with Aquatic Sciences Meeting attendees. ASLO Emerging Fellows benefit from ongoing support through career development, networking and broad exposure to careers utilizing skills and knowledge about aquatic sciences, and not restricted to academic career paths, including industry, government and military tracks. ASLO Emerging Fellows are the future scientific leaders who excel professionally as well as through their vision and guidance shaping aquatic sciences to best support humanity's needs. While this session is designed to introduce the community to the second cohort of ASLO Emerging Fellows, provided there is space, we welcome submissions from any early career attendee who seeks to enhance their network through this short format (3 minute) presentation opportunity.

Keywords: Emerging Fellows, Emerging Fellows, Early Career, Workforce Development, Mentoring

EP13 Integrating Scientific Modeling and Environmental Financing for Urban Resilience (ORAL, POST)

Kolin Bilbrew, Louisiana State University ([email protected])
Thomas Douthat, Louisiana State University ([email protected])

We present a conceptual model for incorporating scientific modeling of water quality–related ecosystem services at the landscape level using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) tool to support conservation finance mechanisms, such as Environmental Impact Bonds (EIBs). This approach applies both to water quality and hydrological process modeling by providing insights into the relative contributions of land use and land cover to important outcomes, such as stormwater management or land building. A current gap in these outputs is the limited understanding of how landscape services integrate into different "stacks" of final ecosystem goods and services (FEGS), and whether the beneficiaries and stakeholders associated with each stack are organized clearly enough to support payments or environmental finance mechanisms like environmental bonds. To explore this issue in the context of Puerto Rico, we use benefit conceptualization platforms such as GEMs (Generic Ecosystem Services Models) and FEGs (Final Ecosystem Goods and Services) to assess whether the outputs of our Puerto Rico model—translated into estimated goods and services—can be linked to defined stakeholder groups. This linkage is crucial to support land acquisition and restoration through environmental financing. We will present case studies to demonstrate how environmental modeling can help establish a baseline for value creation and benefits to various communities, based on calculated sediment export, estimated sediment retention, and potential restoration efforts. These elements will help establish a robust framework that uses evidence to engage public officials and encourage investment in innovative financing strategies aimed at mitigating sedimentation challenges in municipalities through the lens of ecosystem services.

Keywords: InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services & Tradeoffs)

EP14 Training for Waterscapes Under Pressure: Interdisciplinary Learning and Mentorship in Aquatic Sciences (ORAL, POST, LIGHT)

Ashleigh Pilkerton, University of Wyoming ([email protected])
Shea Wyatt, University of Victoria ([email protected])
Alanna Lecher, Lynn University ([email protected])
Carol Barbosa, Ohio Wesleyan University ([email protected])
Carrie Ann Sharitt, Grand Valley State University ([email protected])

Aquatic systems are increasingly shaped by complex environmental and societal pressures that demand interdisciplinary and collaborative solutions. These challenges create opportunities to rethink how we train and support the next generation of aquatic scientists and practitioners. Preparing current and future professionals to address these issues requires training frameworks that integrate diverse methodologies, perspectives, and collaborative skill sets. By bringing together educators, researchers, practitioners, and trainees, this session will highlight approaches for fostering interdisciplinary learning and collaboration in aquatic sciences.

We will explore how training programs, academic courses, workshops, and other professional development initiatives are preparing individuals across career stages to address emerging challenges in waterscape conservation and management. Presenters are invited to share innovative educational approaches, interdisciplinary training models, undergraduate and graduate student mentorship practices, and strategies that enhance skillsets, preparedness, and collaborative problem-solving across aquatic sciences and related fields. Contributions that emphasize partnerships across disciplines, sectors, communities, and geographic regions are especially encouraged. The session will foster discussion on how training and mentorship can better equip current and future professionals to navigate complex aquatic challenges and develop sustainable, inclusive solutions for waterscapes under pressure.

Keywords: education, training, collaboration, interdisciplinary, capacity building

EP15 Communicating Science to the Public (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Focuses on science communication strategies, public engagement, and outreach practices for aquatic science, including translating research for policy and lay audiences.

Keywords: Virtual water, Water footprint

EP16 Human and Social Dimensions (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Explores human-aquatic ecosystem interactions, including governance, livelihoods, equity, and social-ecological systems research.

Keywords: Ecosystem services, Natural capital

EP17 Valuation of Aquatic Ecosystems and Resources (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Explores economic, ecological, and cultural valuation frameworks for aquatic ecosystem services and natural resources.

Keywords: Social-ecological systems, Governance

EP18 Water Footprint and Virtual Water (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Addresses quantification and implications of water use embedded in goods, trade, and consumption patterns (virtual water) and associated footprint metrics.

Keywords: Science communication, Public outreach

Spotlight Session (Invitation-only)

SPOT01 Author Spotlight: Recent High-Impact Articles from the ASLO Journals (ORAL)

Jessie Turner, Old Dominion University ([email protected])
Lasse Riemann, ASLO, Limnology & Oceanography Letters ([email protected])
Laura Falkenberg, ASLO, Limnology & Oceanography Bulletin ([email protected])
David Hambright, ASLO, Limnology & Oceanography ([email protected])
Krista Longnecker, ASLO, Limnology & Oceanography: Methods ([email protected])

The ASLO journal editors convene this invitation-only special session to recognize authors that published highly viewed articles in 2024-2025 in the ASLO family of journals: Limnology and Oceanography, Limnology and Oceanography: Methods, Limnology and Oceanography Letters, and Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin.  The ASLO journals are a success because authors publish their finest work here. We greatly appreciate the contributions of these authors to our science and to the ASLO community.  This session is an opportunity to celebrate the authors and showcase their work, highlighting some of the most influential work in recent years. We invited the lead author or any co-author to present updates to the selected article, describe their evolving research directions, or present a review of the state of the art in their field. Given the broad scope of our journals, these presentations represent the breadth of the aquatic sciences, and some of the most exciting work now underway. Authors include established and early career researchers.

Keywords: ASLO publications, highly cited, most downloaded, influential publications, scholarly impact

Amplifying Voices

AV01 Amplifying Voices in Aquatic Sciences: Waterscapes Under Pressure - Drivers and Opportunities (PRERECORDED)

Rosaura Chapina, The University of Vermont ([email protected])
Mina Bizic, Technical University Berlin ([email protected])
Bianca Rodriguez-Cardona, University of New Hampshire ([email protected])
Bradley Tolar, University of North Carolina Wilmington ([email protected])
Early Career Committee, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography ([email protected])

In an era of accelerating global change, it is crucial to pause and reflect on how our actions today affect and alter our planet. Addressing the pressing current and future environmental challenges faced by aquatic systems, especially at the interfaces with other ecosystems, requires international and multidisciplinary research efforts to ensure inclusive, holistic, and innovative solutions. The ASLO Early Career Committee (ECC) seeks to enhance global collaboration and networking opportunities for early career researchers (ECRs*), through the “Amplifying Voices” series, a platform to highlight (or another word) contributions of ECRs from underrepresented** groups in Aquatic Sciences.

Following a high attendance at the Amplifying Voices sessions at previous ASLO meetings, we are excited to bring "Amplifying Voices" to the ASLO 2027 Aquatic Sciences Meeting, inviting ECRs worldwide who cannot attend the conference in person to present their research in a pre-recorded format. We invite all presentations that promote our ability to address current issues facing our aquatic systems. Selected talks will be grouped by topic to form a cohesive session. As presenters will not attend or have access to the conference, abstract submission and registration fees will be waived for this session. Presenters of selected abstracts must submit a pre-recorded talk with contact information so viewers can follow up with questions.

*PhD students and non-tenured researchers <10 years since award of highest degree.

**including ethnic origin and ethnicity, disability, sex, gender, sexual orientation, geographic location, or any other component of identity underrepresented in science.

Keywords: Early Career, Sustainable Solutions, DEIJ, Pollution, Global Change

Contributed Sessions

CS01 Acidification/Alkalinity Enhancement (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Studies of ocean and freshwater acidification impacts on biogeochemistry and biota, alongside emerging alkalinity enhancement approaches for carbon dioxide removal and their ecological tradeoffs.

Keywords: Ocean acidification, Carbon dioxide removal

CS02 Aquatic Invasion Ecology (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Research on introduction, establishment, spread, and impacts of non-native species in freshwater and marine systems, including management and prevention strategies.

Keywords: Invasive species, Species establishment

CS03 Aquatic Landscape Ecology (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Examines spatial patterns and processes linking aquatic habitats across watersheds and seascapes, including connectivity, heterogeneity, and cross-ecosystem exchange.

Keywords: Landscape connectivity, Habitat heterogeneity

CS04 Benthic and Littoral Ecology and Physiology (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Covers organism-to-community dynamics in benthic and nearshore/littoral zones, including physiological adaptations to sediment, light, and hydrodynamic conditions.

Keywords: Benthic communities, Littoral zone

CS05 Biodiversity, Evolution, Adaptation: patterns and techniques (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Broad session on patterns of aquatic biodiversity and evolutionary adaptation, plus methodological advances (genomics, phylogenetics) for detecting them.

Keywords: Evolutionary adaptation, Phylogenetics

CS06 Community Ecology (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Explores species interactions, assembly processes, and structure of aquatic communities across trophic levels and environmental gradients.

Keywords: Species interactions, Community assembly

CS07 Connectivity and movement (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Addresses organism movement, migration, and dispersal, and physical/hydrological connectivity linking aquatic habitats and populations.

Keywords: Dispersal, Hydrological connectivity

CS08 Contaminants (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Research on sources, fate, transport, and ecological/toxicological effects of chemical contaminants (including emerging contaminants like microplastics and PFAS) in aquatic systems.

Keywords: Emerging contaminants, Ecotoxicology

CS09 Cyanobacteria (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Dedicated session on cyanobacterial ecology, physiology, toxin production, and bloom dynamics distinct from broader harmful algal bloom research.

Keywords: Cyanotoxins, Bloom dynamics

CS10 Extreme Events, Regime Shifts and Tipping Points (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Examines ecosystem responses to extreme climatic/hydrologic events and the thresholds, feedbacks, and early-warning indicators associated with regime shifts.

Keywords: Regime shifts, Ecological thresholds

CS11 Fish and Fisheries (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Covers fish population dynamics, habitat use, and fisheries science, including stock assessment, sustainable harvest, and management approaches.

Keywords: Fisheries management, Fish population dynamics

CS12 Harmful Blooms (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Broader session on harmful algal and cyanobacterial blooms, encompassing drivers, detection, forecasting, and management across freshwater and marine systems.

Keywords: Harmful algal blooms, Bloom forecasting

CS13 Interdisciplinary Topics (misc) (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Catch-all session for cross-cutting research that integrates multiple disciplines (physical, biological, social) and does not fit neatly into other topical categories.

Keywords: Interdisciplinary research, Cross-cutting synthesis

CS14 Shallow and non-permanent inland waters (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Focuses on ecology, hydrology, and biogeochemistry of temporary ponds, vernal pools, and other intermittent or shallow freshwater habitats.

Keywords: Temporary ponds, Intermittent waters

CS15 Novel Methods (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Highlights new technologies, sensors, sampling techniques, and analytical approaches (e.g., eDNA, autonomous platforms, machine learning) advancing aquatic science.

Keywords: eDNA, Autonomous sensors

CS16 Phosphorus Biogeochemistry and Cycling (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Examines phosphorus sources, transformations, and cycling in aquatic systems and its role in eutrophication and nutrient management.

Keywords: Nutrient cycling, Eutrophication

CS17 Physical Dynamics and Coupling (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Covers physical processes (circulation, mixing, stratification) and their coupling with biological and chemical dynamics in lakes, rivers, and oceans.

Keywords: Stratification, Physical-biological coupling

CS18 Polar Ecosystems (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Research on Arctic and Antarctic aquatic ecosystems, including sea ice dynamics, cold-adapted biota, and climate-driven change in polar waters.

Keywords: Sea ice ecology, Polar biota

CS19 Primary Production (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Addresses phytoplankton and macrophyte productivity, photosynthetic processes, and controls on carbon fixation across aquatic systems.

Keywords: Phytoplankton productivity, Carbon fixation

CS20 Restoration (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Covers strategies, outcomes, and monitoring of aquatic habitat and ecosystem restoration efforts, including nature-based solutions.

Keywords: Habitat restoration, Nature-based solutions

CS21 River and Stream Ecology (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Focuses on lotic ecosystem structure and function, including flow regimes, riparian interactions, and longitudinal river processes.

Keywords: Lotic ecosystems, Flow regime

CS22 Stable Isotopes (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Methodological and applied session on using stable isotope techniques to trace food web structure, nutrient sources, and material flows in aquatic systems.

Keywords: Isotope tracing, Food web analysis

CS23 Urban Ecosystems (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Examines aquatic ecosystems in urbanized landscapes, including stormwater impacts, urban stream syndrome, and green infrastructure.

Keywords: Urban streams, Stormwater impacts

CS24 Viruses (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Covers viral ecology in aquatic systems, including host-virus dynamics, viral shunt processes, and roles in microbial food webs and biogeochemical cycling.

Keywords: Viral ecology, Microbial food web

CS25 Water Quality (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Broad session on physical, chemical, and biological indicators of water quality, monitoring approaches, and management implications across freshwater and marine systems.

Keywords: Water quality monitoring, Quality indicators

CS26 Zooplankton Ecology and Physiology (ORAL, POST)

ASLO Meetings, Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. ([email protected])

Focuses on zooplankton population dynamics, physiological ecology, and their roles in pelagic food webs.

Keywords: Zooplankton dynamics, Pelagic food webs