The last phase of the project is designed to analyse potential effects of climate change on viral infections in kelp. Changes that our sea ecosystems experience due to the global rise in temperature include species shifts and migrations. Such consequences have already been observed in kelp from the northeast Atlantic coast, where the southern distribution boundaries have shifted northwards.

 

We predict that higher temperatures diminish the amount of carbon that is assimilated and transported through kelp forests and increase viral infections. However, we need experimental measurements of these infection rates, and possible host responses in order to investigate whether high temperature increases susceptibility to viral infection and decrease the fitness performance and reproductive output under viral infection. 

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During the first year of sampling, diverse physicochemical parameters of the water will be measured (e.g. temperature, salinity and hydrodynamics) at the same time the samples are collected. Correlations between these variables and the presence of viruses in the samples from all locations will be done in order to determinate if temperature gradients, in this case, increase or decrease viral presence. Experimental tests will be also done with reproductive kelp, previously scanned for viruses.

 

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