Will Shrinking Glaciers Mean More Harmful Algal Blooms?

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By tula.org.

Marine algae known as phytoplankton form the essential foundation of marine food webs. Some are dangerous to marine mammals and humans, and researchers are exploring how the diversity and abundance of certain phytoplankton are linked to fresh water—which may be bad news in a changing climate.

Toxic algal blooms—formerly known as red tides—can cause devastation throughout the marine food web. When a species of phytoplankton known as Pseudo-nitzschia seriata is abundant, for instance, herring, clams, mussels, and crabs can accumulate domoic acid from the plankton in their tissues.In marine mammals and people, domoic acid acts as a neurotoxin that can cause disorientation, memory loss, seizures, and even death, making it very dangerous to harvest traditional foods in First Nations communities. Government agencies in Washington State have closed shellfish beaches and crab fisheries during harmful blooms, while in British Columbia, a lack of monitoring for toxins means that most beaches are closed to shellfish harvesting year-round.Justin Del Bel Belluz, a biological oceanographer at the Hakai Institute, studies how conditions in the ocean—temperature, salinity, and other factors—affect the diversity and abundance of marine phytoplankton.“Phytoplankton form the base of the marine food web, so if you have big changes in species or biomass, it definitely perpetuates upward,” Belluz says. “In BC, there are strong ties between spring phytoplankton blooms and fisheries returns and seabird breeding success.”Though scientists have studied phytoplankton farther up the coast in Alaska, and in the Salish Sea to the south, says Belluz, little is known about these tiny algae on the Central Coast. “A lot of knowledge gaps still exist in this region, and building a baseline understanding of these ecosystems is important considering the level of expected change.”

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Image Credits: Flickr.com.
Image Credits: Flickr.com.