“…This issue of the New Zealand Journal of Botany is the first of a two-part Special Issue arising from the 3rd New Zealand Symposium on the Biology and Biotechnological Applications of Microalgae and Photosynthetic Prokaryotes. The first two meetings of this series took place in 2012 and 2015, respectively (Eaton-Rye et al 2014;Packer et al 2017). This third symposium was held at the University of Otago on 20 and 21 February 2018 and had 37 participants (Appendix 1).…”