kochi is there a sudden spurt in the population of harmful algae in the coastal waters what is the quality of phytoplanktons present in the fish spawning areas these are some of the questions that would be a click away for the policymakers and scientists in the marine sector to help connect the dots and develop computer models that could run and give a picture for the immediate future like presence of harmful algae which makes waters poisonous or where nutritive fish could be caught this could help in developing regulations for the marine sector and also help the fishermen make the most out of it the ministry of earth sciences has roped in experts from the national marine fishery services usa who already have daily and weekly alerts for the fishermen in the us there are a lot of phytoplanktons in the oceans of the world but it is different in each environment now with new research targeting the omega3 fatty acid as a health food and fish being the source for this protein scientists are focussing on the food chain of these fish there are several types of phytoplanktons some of which have lots of these proteins so if we trace the food we will be able to identify the fishes which are eating these plants and thus catch them to process the proteins from them said bill peterson senior oceanographer and specialist in climate variability and change on pelagic fish populations he said that indian scientists have done a lot of work on food chains in the waters here we hope to help them connect and analyse using models stephanie moore who develops models on ecological forecasts for outbreaks of harmful algal blooms and pathogens that threaten seafood safety public health and the economic value of fisheries says that information is all there but one needs to put the pieces together we have already developed models and we hope that after making a few changes in the parameters we should be able to develop a system for the indian scientists to run she uses high resolution climate and weather information as well as novel biosensors to a gain a predictive understanding of the organisms that cause these outbreaks and how they interact with the marine environment a marine toxin specialist vera trainer hopes to help the scientists test the toxicity levels in harmful algae that are present in the coastal waters vera says that there are toxic screening methods as there is growing concern that these are seen near the coral reefs there is no impact on the fish but the toxicity remains in the waters it is learnt that the waters from desalination plants could have toxicity if they are located near harmful algae the ministry of earth sciences which is coordinating the programme under the indous science and technology forum has been arranging meetings across the country our purpose is to develop a fishery management system and also put some regulations in place said v