Micro- and macroalgae are fundamental components of aquatic ecosystems and will play an increasingly important role in our future. While many algae are beneficial, such as seaweeds used for food, biofuels, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics, others can have detrimental effects. Harmful algal blooms (HABs), for instance, degrade water quality and can severely impact wild and farmed fish and shellfish, as well as drinking water resources. Climate change is further exacerbating the frequency and intensity of these blooms. As a result, HABs pose growing challenges to global aquaculture, including seaweed farming, the fastest expanding aquaculture sector and one with major socio-economic importance in many regions.
PHABB addresses these challenges through a unifying research question: how can we fight pathogens of algae to safeguard seaweed production, and exploit them to combat harmful algal blooms? To tackle this, PHABB brings together a consortium of European academic and industrial partners with complementary expertise spanning marine and freshwater algal–pathogen interactions, microbial ecology and evolution, epidemiology, taxonomy, microscopy, and omics approaches. Within this framework, ten doctoral candidates are being trained to investigate the biological and evolutionary drivers of microbial community dynamics, virulence, and host specificity, with the ultimate goal of developing innovative strategies for disease management in seaweeds and biocontrol of HABs. We expect PHABB to have a lasting impact on both research and industry in this field, primarily through the doctoral candidates, who will carry and apply the expertise developed during the programme throughout their careers.
