
Aletta T. YñiguezUniversity of the Philippines System | UPD · Marine Science Institute
Aletta T. Yñiguez
Ph.D. Marine Biology and Fisheries
About
50
Publications
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
June 2008 - present
May 2004 - December 2007
Education
August 2001 - December 2007
University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
Field of study
- Marine Biology and Fisheries
June 1995 - April 1999
Publications
Publications (50)
Fish kills in Southeast Asia are frequently associated with harmful algal blooms (HABs) and cause significant ecological and economic impacts and can have negative effects on the sustainability of aquatic ecosystems and the fisheries they support. This paper serves as a review of fish-kill events with focus on those related to HABs within the regio...
Our study simulated a size-structured phytoplankton community in the Philippine Sea to determine the factors that regulate the vertical phytoplankton distribution using a one-dimensional coupled physical-biological individual-based model in the Virtual Ecosystem Workbench (VEW) software. Three phytoplankton groups (pico-, nano- and microphytoplankt...
The declining mangrove forest cover in the Philippines led to increased attention towards their conservation and restoration, driven by growing awareness of their importance and the ecosystem services they provide. Yet, time-series information on forest structure, growth, and development of naturally occurring and planting efforts is still lacking....
Fish kills in Southeast Asia are frequently associated with harmful algal blooms (HABs) and cause significant ecological and economic impacts. This paper serves as a review of fish kill events with focus on those related to HABs within the region. It examines the causative algal species, known mechanisms of fish mortality, and socio-economic conseq...
This paper provides a review of toxic algal blooms in the Philippine and Malaysian coastal and marine systems, considering relevant available knowledge, including climate change dimension/s in the assessment of their recorded recent expansion. The first record of human toxicity in the Philippines associated with HABs/toxic algal blooms specifically...
Globally, observations on marine species during marine heatwaves (MHWs) help outline the scope of the MHW’s possible biological effects. In line with this effort, this paper presents a 2020 MHW that coincided with a reported ‘tomato jellyfish’ (Crambione mastigophora Maas, 1903) bloom on 23 March 2020 in the Corong-Corong Bay of Palawan, Philippine...
Globally, there are 3 400 to 4 000 described species of marine microalgae but only 1 to 2 percent are considered to be harmful. Harmful algal blooms (HABs) have significant impacts on food safety and security through contamination or mass mortalities of aquatic organisms. The impacts and mass mortalities of marine species caused by harmful algae ar...
This chapter provides the first overview of the disruptive impacts of HABs on the blue economy, with a particular focus on the application of science and technology in their management and mitigation. We present case studies of HABs in five different locations as examples of their effects on different sectors of the blue economy. We also review the...
The subsurface chlorophyll-a maximum (SCM) is a phenomenon that contributes significantly to the total primary production of the open ocean but it is not observable from remote sensing, thus primary production based on satellite information is highly underestimated. In a highly dynamic region such as the Philippine Sea, turbulence caused by tropica...
Marine heatwaves are discrete and prolonged periods of anomalously warm seawater temperature which have devastating ecological and socioeconomic impacts. Being part of the center of marine biodiversity and a fisheries-dependent country, the Philippines is vulnerable to the threats of marine heatwaves, but these extreme events remain understudied in...
This is the first report on hydrodynamic models to determine current and water residence time patterns for Matarinao and Murcielagos bays in the Philippines, which have a long history of harmful algal blooms (HABs). Field surveys were conducted in Matarinao Bay in April and August 2010 and in Murcielagos Bay in February 2011. Hydrodynamic models of...
Coral reefs are typified by their benthic components, and reef diversity and productivity are traditionally ascribed to the symbiotic association between corals and zooxanthellae, and other macroalgal forms. Less understood is the role of plankton and adjacent pelagic areas in contributing to reef productivity. Half of the reef benthos are filter o...
The potential for advection to influence harmful algal bloom (HAB) spread in adjacent embayments and islands has not been investigated in the Philippines as previous studies have focused on HAB dynamics within specific embayments. Advection of HABs may be relevant in the Samar-Leyte region where adjacent sites are subject to recurrent blooms of Pyr...
The marine habitats of the Philippines are recognized to be some of the most biodiverse systems globally yet only 1.7% of its seas are designated as marine protected areas (MPAs) with varying levels of implementation. Many of these MPAs were established based on local-scale conservation and fisheries objectives without considering larger-scale ecol...
The Global Harmful Algal Blooms (GlobalHAB, www.global
hab.info) Program is aimed at fostering international cooperative
research directed toward improving the prediction of
harmful algal bloom (HAB) events in aquatic ecosystems, and
providing sound knowledge for policy- and decision-making
to manage and mitigate HAB impacts in a changing planet.
G...
The small pelagic fishery in the southern Philippines is one of the largest contributors to fisheries production in the country, and is dominated by the Bali sardine Sardinella lemuru. This species is a year-round spawner that has its peak spawning period during the northeast monsoon (NEM) months of November to February. However, there is still lim...
Red tides and associated fisheries damage caused by the harmful raphidophyte Chattonella were reassessed based on the documented local records for 50 years to understand the distribution and economic impacts of the harmful species in the Western Pacific. Blooms of Chattonella with fisheries damage have been recorded in East Asia since 1969, whereas...
The thecal tabulation and body scale structure of the marine armoured dinoflagellate Heterocapsa, isolated from Philippines, were examined using LM, SEM and TEM, and its phylogenetic position was inferred from ITS and LSU rDNA sequences. Cells were ovoid and the plate tabulation (Po, cp, X, 5′, 3a, 7′′, 6c, 5s, 5′′′, 2′′′′) was consistent with most...
The health of many coral reefs around the globe is being threatened by a variety of local and global stressors, which makes it even more important to assess and monitor them. While the coral cover is one of the easiest and used quantifiers of reef health, the addition of coral colony sizes provides deeper insights into reef recruitment potential, f...
Global trends in the occurrence, toxicity and risk posed by harmful algal blooms to natural systems, human health and coastal economies are poorly constrained, but are widely thought to be increasing due to climate change and nutrient pollution. Here, we conduct a statistical analysis on a global dataset extracted from the Harmful Algae Event Datab...
The vertical distribution of phytoplankton in the open ocean shows an increase in biomass at a depth referred to as the Subsurface Chlorophyll Maximum (SCM) that contributes significantly to the primary production of the water column. Hence, it is important to understand the dynamics that lead its formation and maintenance. This study examines the...
The marine thecate dinoflagellate Pyrodinium bahamense inhabits the tropical to subtropical waters of the Indo-Pacific, Arabian coasts, eastern Pacific and Atlantic-Caribbean. The species produces the neurotoxins saxitoxins (STXs), a collective compounds that caused paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) in human since the 1970s.
This review highlight...
Twenty‐six cultures of the harmful marine dinoflagellate Karlodinium, isolated from Japanese and Philippine coastal waters, were examined using LM, SEM and molecular phylogeny inferred from ITS and LSU rDNA. Seven Karlodinium species (6 from Japan and 4 from Philippines), K. australe, K. ballantinum, K. decipiens, K. gentienii, K. veneficum, K. zho...
In the Southeast Asian region, the Philippines and Malaysia are two of the most affected by Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). Using long-term observations of HAB events, we determined if these are increasing in frequency and duration, and expanding across space in each country. Blooms of Paralytic Shellfish Toxin (PST)-producing species in the Philippin...
Harmful algal blooms (HABs) that produce toxins and those that lead to fish kills are global problems that appear to be increasing in frequency and expanding in area. One way to help mitigate their impacts on people's health and livelihoods is to develop early-warning systems. Models to predict and manage HABs typically make use of complex multi-mo...
Information on community structure and spatial distribution of benthic habitats are important in marine conservation and management. Coral areas, often monitored by trained scuba divers, are of importance for the ecosystem goods and services they provide. The data gathered may, however, be limited due to cost and time constraints. These restriction...
Bivalve molluscs represent an important food source within the Philippines, but the health of seafood consumers is compromised through the accumulation of harmful algal toxins in edible shellfish tissues. In order to assess the dynamics of toxin risk in shellfish, this study investigated the uptake, depuration, assimilation, and analogue changes of...
Coral reefs of the North Indo-West Pacific provide important ecosystem services to the region but are subjected to multiple local and global threats. Strengthening management measures necessitate understanding the variability of larval connectivity and bridging global connectivity models to local scales. An individual-based Lagrangian biophysical m...
Morphology and phylogeny of the marine woloszynskioid dinoflagellate Biecheleriopsis adriatica, collected from Philippines, Singapore, Palau and Japan, were examined by using light and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and molecular phylogeny based on rDNA sequences. Cells of these cultures were ovoid to spherical, measured 11.5–17.3 μm in length...
Studying ocean microbiomes is important in understanding the effects of the changing environment on our seas. The Philippines, being an archipelago, has been regarded as one of the most vulnerable regions under climate change scenarios, and understanding of the functions and diversity of microbial communities is a paramount step toward mitigating a...
In contrast to temperate Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), knowledge on the mechanisms driving tropical HABs are less well studied. The interaction of a seasonal temperature window, cysts (for certain species) and large-scale transport are some of the key processes in temperate HABs. In the Philippines, HABs occur not along long open coastlines, but in...
Microbes are central to the structuring and functioning of marine ecosystems. Given the remarkable diversity of the ocean microbiome, uncovering marine microbial taxa remains a fundamental challenge in microbial ecology. However, there has been little effort, thus far, to describe the diversity of marine microorganisms in the region of high marine...
Supplementary materials
The depth profiles of physical (Figure S1) and chemical data (Figure S2) as well as rarefaction curves (Figure S3) are shown. Tables for the physical and chemical data used for Canonical Correspondence Analysis (Table S1), results of statistical tests (Table S4) and depth-associated OTUs (Table S5) are also shown.
CTD (Table S2) and chemical oceanography data (Table S3)
Taxonomic data on phytoplankton composition is important for ecological studies, however, such information is not easy to gather. Imaging devices and image classification software have been developed in the past decades for rapid phytoplankton assessment. Taxonomic resolution output of classification software are primarily limited by the quality of...
To study the complex patterns governing Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB), an individual- or agent-based modeling approach was employed. The constructed model was able to mechanistically represent both the biological and the physico-chemical factors involved during events of bloom and decline of the toxic dinoflagellate, Pyrodinium bahamense var. compress...
Harmful algal blooms are a recurrent, expensive and at times fatal problem plaguing the Philippines. In particular, Sorsogon Bay in the Bicol region has experienced prolonged shellfish bans due to blooms by the Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning causative species Pyrodinium bahamense var. compressum (Pbc). In order to help explore and understand the pop...
Cooler temperatures and elevated chlorophyll a, indicative of upwelling, are observed off the coast of Zamboanga Peninsula, Philippines. This upwelling is driven primarily by offshore Ekman transport as the Northeast Monsoon winds blow parallel along the coast of Zamboanga, with enhancement of positive wind stress curl due to the land’s frictional...
Macroalgae are modular organisms that can express different morphologies depending on the environment to which they are exposed. Their growth under varying light, temperature, and nutrient regimes, interacting with disturbance factors such as herbivory and hydrodynamics, leads to particular morphological types. The present study illustrates the pot...
The growth patterns of macroalgae in three-dimensional space can provide important information regarding the environments in which they live, and insights into changes that may occur when those environments change due to anthropogenic and/or natural causes. To decipher these patterns and their attendant mechanisms and influencing factors, a spatial...
The lateral variation of sediment properties and associated cyst content of sediment in Manila Bay were determined and their possible role/s in the occurrences of Pyrodinium bahamense Plate var. compressum (Bohm) Steidinger, Tester et Taylor toxic blooms were assessed. Manila Bay's surface sediment was determined to be silt dominated. Clay generall...
Macroalgae are an important part of the coral reef ecosystem that has largely been overlooked. However, in the past few decades their abundances have increased and this has been attributed to combinations of coral mortality opening up space in the reef, decreased grazing and increased nutrient load in reefs. This dissertation illustrates a novel me...