The IAEA Coordinated Research Project (CRP) “Evaluating the Impact of Ocean Acidification on Seafood – a Global Approach”, supported by the Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre (OA-ICC), conducted its final meeting on 4-7 December 2023 at the IAEA Marine Environment Laboratories in Monaco. Spanning over a period of five years (2018-2023), the project brought together scientists affiliated with research institutions from 14 IAEA Member States (Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey), creating a joint platform for collaboration on a project of shared interest in the area of seafood security with broader socio-economic implications.
Using a jointly agreed research protocol developed at the first project meeting in Sweden in 2019, all participating scientists embarked on a long-term laboratory experiment (8 months) on select species of particular economic, social and cultural relevance for their countries. A total of 16 species – from mollusks and crustaceans to echinoderms and fish – were submitted to lower pH treatments to assess the impact of ocean acidification on organism development and performance, observe existing resilience and/or adaptation pathways and prompt potential local aquaculture measures and vaster global mitigation solutions.
Over the course of this complex exercise, researchers had to tackle a number of challenges, from learning to work with completely new species (understand their physiology, keep them alive under long-term experimental conditions) to maintaining a smooth functioning of their experimental set-up and overall laboratory facilities. The Covid-19 pandemic put an additional layer of perturbations and concerns on this collective endeavor, creating shortages of electricity, delays in procurement of equipment and utensils, difficulties in seawater supply and overall lack of research personnel on laboratory premises due to quarantine measures. Nevertheless, in spite of all adversities, most participating scientists (11 Member States) managed to conduct and finalize their research work (on 13 species) by continuously adapting their experimental designs and processes.
During the final CRP meeting last week, all participants expressed a common vision of very high value attached to their experience within the project, emphasizing benefits for their personal research background as well as enhanced capacities for their home institutions, to be further developed and disseminated among colleagues in their countries. In defiance of all challenges posed by the global epidemiological context and certain local disturbances (e.g., personnel turnover), the CRP presented excellent results and fulfilled its pre-set requirements. In terms of scientific knowledge created and shared with the community, three research papers have already been published and more than 10 will be produced in due course and submitted to relevant publications. Participating scientists managed to establish fruitful inter-institutional collaborations and lay the foundations of a robust network with strong growth potential.
Running under the motto “Collaborating and Connecting through Research”, IAEA Coordinated Research Projects (CRPs) provide unique opportunities for meaningful exchanges and common scientific efforts for both developing and developed Member States, supporting innovation and joint knowledge building based on the use of nuclear technology and isotopic techniques. You cal learn more about these IAEA activities here.
[You can read another IAEA/OA-ICC story on the emergence of the project here.]
OA-ICC, 12 December 2023.
