Abstract
High accumulations of phytoplankton species that produce toxins are referred to as harmful algal blooms (HABs). HABs represent one of the most important sources of contamination in marine environments, as well as a serious threat to public health, fisheries, aquaculture-based industries, and tourism. Therefore, methods effectively controlling HABs with minimal impact on marine ecology are required. Marine dinoflagellates of the genera Dinophysis and Prorocentrum are representative producers of okadaic acid (OA) and dinophysistoxins responsible for the diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) which is a human intoxication caused by the consumption of shellfish that bioaccumulate those toxins. In this work we explore the use of natural clay for removing Prorocentrum lima. We evaluate the adsorption properties of clays in seawater containing the dinoflagellates. The experimental results confirmed the cell removal through the flocculation of algal and mineral particles leading to the formation of aggregates, which rapidly settle and further entrain cells during their descent. Moreover, the microscopy images of the samples enable one to observe the clays in aggregates of two or more cells where the mineral particles were bound to the outer membranes of the dinoflagellates. Therefore, this preliminary data offers promising results to use these clays for the mitigation of HABs.
Highlights
Massive algal proliferations known as Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) are natural phenomena that constitute one of the most important sources of contamination in the oceans [1]
Prorocentrum lima (Figure 1) was incubated in seawater with 0.2% of different clays and the mixture was allowed to settle by gravity
We set up 100 mL water columns with seawater, the corresponding clay and the dinoflagellate Prorocentrum lima, (Figure 4)
Summary
Massive algal proliferations known as Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) are natural phenomena that constitute one of the most important sources of contamination in the oceans [1]. As a result of HABs, due to the frequent presence of toxin-producing organisms, biotoxins are accumulated across food chains causing adverse effects for animals and humans and threatening ecosystem integrity [2]. The genus Prorocentrum and Dinophysis of marine dinoflagellates synthesize okadaic acid (OA) and dinophysistoxins (DTXs) [7]. Those toxins are accumulated within the tissues of filtering organisms feeding on HABs, rapidly spreading to their predators in the food chain and eventually reaching human consumers causing diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) syndrome [8].
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