Abstract

Many benthic dinoflagellates are known or suspected producers of lipophilic polyether phycotoxins, particularly in tropical and subtropical coastal zones. These toxins are responsible for diverse intoxication events of marine fauna and human consumers of seafood, but most notably in humans, they cause toxin syndromes known as diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) and ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP). This has led to enhanced, but still insufficient, efforts to describe benthic dinoflagellate taxa using morphological and molecular approaches. For example, recently published information on epibenthic dinoflagellates from Mexican coastal waters includes about 45 species from 15 genera, but many have only been tentatively identified to the species level, with fewer still confirmed by molecular criteria. This review on the biodiversity and biogeography of known or putatively toxigenic benthic species in Latin America, restricts the geographical scope to the neritic zones of the North and South American continents, including adjacent islands and coral reefs. The focus is on species from subtropical and tropical waters, primarily within the genera Prorocentrum, Gambierdiscus/Fukuyoa, Coolia, Ostreopsis and Amphidinium. The state of knowledge on reported taxa in these waters is inadequate and time-series data are generally lacking for the prediction of regime shift and global change effects. Details of their respective toxigenicity and toxin composition have only recently been explored in a few locations. Nevertheless, by describing the specific ecosystem habitats for toxigenic benthic dinoflagellates, and by comparing those among the three key regions - the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea and the subtropical and tropical Pacific coast, insights for further risk assessment of the global spreading of toxic benthic species is generated for the management of their effects in Latin America.

Highlights

  • TO BENTHIC DINOFLAGELLATESBenthic dinoflagellates are important components of marine ecosystems, implicated in benthic food webs and species interactions, including bacterial associations, and contribute to community diversity

  • Benthic HABs are of particular significance in tropical and subtropical regions, for coastal and island communities where the ocean is crucial for seafood production for local inhabitants, and for global trade

  • The distribution of benthic dinoflagellates within Latin America is expected to reflect adaptive capacity, tolerance and resilience of species within ecological niches defined by the ambient environmental conditions

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Summary

TO BENTHIC DINOFLAGELLATES

Benthic dinoflagellates are important components of marine ecosystems, implicated in benthic food webs and species interactions, including bacterial associations, and contribute to community diversity. Benthic HABs are of particular significance in tropical and subtropical regions, for coastal and island communities where the ocean is crucial for seafood production for local inhabitants, and for global trade These regions are frequently threatened by human illnesses and marine faunal toxicity associated with toxic benthic and epiphytic dinoflagellates (Berdalet et al, 2017). In Latin America only a few countries have implemented routine monitoring programs and these focus exclusively on commercial species (Cuellar-Martinez et al, 2018) With such inadequate monitoring protocols to protect human health, some fish species have been banned for human consumption, e.g., in Australia and French Polynesia, because of the risk of CFP (Lehane, 2000). In spite of the health risks posed by bHAB toxins, many toxins are still not well characterized structurally or toxicologically, and reliable quantitative analysis and assay methods for such toxins are still emerging

BIOGEOGRAPHY OF TOXIGENIC BENTHIC DINOFLAGELLATES
Eastern Pacific Coast of Latin America
Eastern Pacific coast of Latin America
British and United States Virgin Islands
Venezuela Colombia Belize Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
Southwestern Atlantic
Subtropical and Tropical Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea
TAXONOMY AND BIODIVERSITY
Morphological Taxonomy
Molecular Genetic Approaches to Taxonomy and Phylogenetic Reconstruction
Toxins produced
CTX and MTX
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
Full Text
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