Harmful algal blooms: causes, impacts and detection

By K. Sellner, G. Doucette, G. Kirkpatrick. Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology, 2003

660 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Blooms of autotrophic algae and some heterotrophic protists are increasingly frequent in coastal waters around the world and are collectively grouped as harmful algal blooms (HABs). Blooms of these organisms are attributed to two primary factors: natural processes such as circulation, upwelling relaxation, and river flow; and, anthropogenic loadings leading to eutrophication. Unfortunately, the latter is commonly assumed to be the primary cause of all blooms, which is not the case in many instances. Moreover, although it is generally acknowledged that occurrences of these phenomena are increasing throughout the world's oceans, the reasons for this apparent increase remain debated and include not only eutrophication but increased observation efforts in coastal zones of the world. There is a rapidly advancing monitoring effort resulting from the perception of increased impacts from these HABs, manifested as expanding routine coastal monitoring programs, rapid development and deployment of new detection methods for individual species, toxins, and toxicities, and expansion of coastal modeling activities towards observational forecasts of bloom landfall and eventually bloom prediction. Together, these many efforts will provide resource managers with the tools needed to develop effective strategies for the management and mitigation of HABs and their frequently devastating impacts on the coastal environment.

Subfields: Environmental Chemistry, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c39292055f39492403321a11d17ba93a3dede2a9

How researchers see this paper

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In Environmental Chemistry

1. P. Glibert
2. C. Gobler
3. J. Burkholder
4. W. Cochlan
5. Y. Collos
6. D. Anderson
7. Hans W. Paerl
8. C. Heil

In Oceanography

1. P. Glibert
2. J. Burkholder
3. C. Gobler
4. W. Cochlan
5. D. Anderson
6. Y. Collos
7. C. Heil
8. Hans W. Paerl

Citations in the corpus

• Eutrophication and Harmful Algal Blooms: A Scientific Consensus (2008, background): “…and other chemical factors may modulate harmful algal species’ responses to nutrient loadings (e.g., Vadstein et al., 2004; Gobler et al., 2002; Sellner et al., 2003; Glibert et al., 2005a), and this complexity of HAB dynamics is a challenge for their management, as further described below.”
• Effects of Karenia brevis harmful algal blooms on nearshore fish communities in southwest Florida (2009, methodology): “Water sample collection and cell-counting procedures for both sampling schemes followed the protocols of Lund et al. (1958), Sournia (1978), and Sellner et al. (2003).”
• Chapter 12: Human Microbiome Analysis (2012, neutral): “an algal bloom [26].”
• Neurotoxic Alkaloids: Saxitoxin and Its Analogs (2010, positive): “The PSTs are primarily produced in detrimental concentrations during harmful algal bloom (HAB) events [2–5] Over the last few decades, HABs have become more frequent, intense, and span a wider global distribution, the cause of which is still under debate [3,6].”
• Opportunities and challenges for the development of an integrated seaweed-based aquaculture activity in Chile: determining the physiological capabilities of Macrocystis and Gracilaria as biofilters (2008, background): “An additional problem mentioned in a recent review (Sellner et al. 2003) indicates that massive introduction of dissolved nutrients, principally nitrogen, into the water column may result in a potential enhancement of risks of harmful algal blooms.”
• Scales of temporal and spatial variability in the distribution of harmful algae species in the Indian River Lagoon, Florida, USA (2011, background): “In response, long-term monitoring programs have been established to document bloom dynamics in ecosystems at risk, and build data bases of information from which models can be developed to predict future trends in HABs (Andersen, 1996; Smayda, 1997; Sellner et al., 2003; Franks, 2008; Zingone et al.”
• Controlling harmful cyanobacterial blooms in a world experiencing anthropogenic and climatic-induced change. (2011, background): “, 2003), and the Potomac Estuary, MD, USA (Sellner et al., 2003).”
• Oligotrophication and emergence of picocyanobacteria and a toxic dinoflagellate in Thau lagoon, southern France (2009, background): “However, the cause-effect relationship is not always well 8 established (Taylor et al., 1994; Smayda, 1997; Sellner et al., 2003).”
• Climate Change and Harmful Algal Blooms (2006, background): “While there certainly is strong evidence that increased phytoplankton biomass and algal blooms are associated with elevated nutrients in some regions of the world ( Sellner et al. 2003 ), assessing larger-scale changes on regional ecosystems is more problematic.”