Harmful algal blooms along the North American west coast region: History, trends, causes, and impacts

By A. Lewitus, R. Horner, David A. Caron, E. García-Mendoza, B. Hickey, M. Hunter, D. Huppert, Raphael M. Kudela, G. Langlois, John L. Largier and 6 more. 2012

272 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A B S T R A C T Along the Pacific coast of North America, from Alaska to Mexico, harmful algal blooms (HABs) have caused losses to natural resources and coastal economies, and have resulted in human sicknesses and deaths for decades. Recent reports indicate a possible increase in their prevalence and impacts of these events on living resources over the last 10–15 years. Two types of HABs pose the most significant threat to coastal ecosystems in this ‘‘west coast’’ region: dinoflagellates of the genera Alexandrium, Gymnodinium, and Pyrodinium that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) and diatoms of the genus Pseudo-nitzschia that produce domoic acid (DA), the cause of amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP) in humans. These species extend throughout the region, while problems from other HABs (e.g., fish kills linked to raphidophytes or Cochlodinium, macroalgal blooms related to invasive species, sea bird deaths caused by surfactant-like proteins produced by Akashiwo sanguinea, hepatotoxins from Microcystis, diarrhetic shellfish poisoning from Dinophysis, and dinoflagellate-produced yessotoxins) are less prevalent but potentially expanding. This paper presents the stateof-knowledge on HABs along the west coast as a step toward meeting the need for integration of HAB outreach, research, and management efforts.

Subfields: Ecology, Environmental Chemistry, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1fdb561976501ed9c1749584dd748be162a577b8

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In Ecology

1. H. Jeong
2. Y. Yoo
3. K. Seong
4. N. Kang
5. S. Higgins
6. Hans W. Paerl
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8. B. Whitton

In Environmental Chemistry

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In Oceanography

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5. N. Kang
6. B. Whitton
7. J. Wehr
8. S. Higgins

Citations in the corpus

• Harmful Algal Blooms (2015, background): “To date, none of these toxins have been identified from eukaryotic algae, with the possible exception of the neurotoxin BMAA (see below).”
• A hierarchy of conceptual models of red-tide generation: Nutrition, behavior, and biological interactions (2015, background): “of red-tide events, and the prediction, monitoring, and control of red tides, including such fundamental processes as the kinetics of nutrient uptake, vertical migration, and mixotrophy of red-tide organisms (e.g., Margalef et al., 1979; Hallegraeff, 1993; Smayda, 1997; Turner and Tester, 1997; Ande”
• Fusing Multi‐ and Hyperspectral Satellite Data for Harmful Algal Bloom Monitoring With Self‐Supervised and Hierarchical Deep Learning (2025, unknown): “P. spp. has been implicated in large-scale fish kills, shellfish harvesting closures, and ecosystem disruptions (Lewitus et al., 2012; McCabe et al., 2016).”