Morphological and toxicological studies of Pseudo-nitzschia species from the central coast of Peru

Abstract

Currently, there is little information on the genus Pseudo-nitzschia in Peruvian coastal waters available and some species have been misidentified. This is the first study of Pseudo-nitzschia species found in several blooms off the central coast of Peru. The cultures obtained and identified by scanning electron microscopy revealed the presence of Pseudo-nitzschia subpacifica and P. pungens, the first record of P. subpacifica in Peruvian coastal waters. Neither P. subpacifica nor P. pungens cultures contained domoic acid (DA) in detectable amounts using HPLC–MS/MS. Our results suggest that Pseudo-nitzschia species are common off the central coast of Peru. The detection of non-toxic strains of Pseudo-nitzschia does not necessarily mean that other populations or strains of this genus in Peru cannot produce DA. Research is needed to evaluate other strains from different locations along the Peruvian coast and to explore whether environmental factors or genetic variability affect the production of DA.