Abstract
Cyanobacteria are important members of lake plankton, but they have the ability to form blooms and produce cyanotoxins and thus cause a number of adverse effects. Freshwater ecosystems around the world have been investigated for the distribution of cyanobacteria and their toxins and the effects they have on the ecosystems. Similar research was performed on the Fehérvárcsurgó reservoir in Hungary during 2018. Cyanobacteria were present and blooming, and the highest abundance was recorded in July (2,822,000 cells/mL). The species present were Aphanizomenon flos-aquae, Microcystis flos-aquae, Microcystis wesenbergii, Cuspidothrix issatschenkoi, Dolichospermum flos-aquae, and Snowella litoralis. In July and September, the microcystin encoding gene mcyE and the saxitoxin encoding gene sxtG were amplified in the biomass samples. While a low concentration of microcystin-RR was found in one water sample from July, analyses of Abramis brama and Carassius gibelio caught from the reservoir did not show the presence of the investigated microcystins in the fish tissue. However, several histopathological changes, predominantly in gills and kidneys, were observed in the fish, and the damage was more severe during May and especially July, which coincides with the increase in cyanobacterial biomass during the summer months. Cyanobacteria may thus have adverse effects in this ecosystem.
Highlights
Cyanobacteria are ancient and ubiquitous organisms that have managed to conquer numerous and diverse ecosystems
Six cyanobacterial species were recorded in Fehérvárcsurgó reservoir
Research performed on the Fehérvárcsurgó reservoir in Hungary during 2018 showed that cyanobacteria were present and blooming during sampling in April, May, July, and September
Summary
Cyanobacteria are ancient and ubiquitous organisms that have managed to conquer numerous and diverse ecosystems. It has been estimated that the total global cyanobacterial biomass is in the order of 3 × 1 014 g of carbon, surpassing a thousand million metric tons (1015 g) of wet biomass (Garcia-Pichel et al, 2003). Toxic metabolic products of cyanobacteria — cyanotoxins — are common, as it was corroborated in a recent review article by Svirčev et al (2019). The review reports 1118 recorded identifications of major cyanotoxins in 869 freshwater ecosystems from 66 countries worldwide. In Europe, cyanotoxins were documented in 273 freshwater ecosystems (predominantly in lakes) within 25 countries. Microcystins (MCs) were the most commonly detected cyanotoxins (58%) in these studies (Svirčev et al, 2019)
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