UMaine Scientist Helps Study Toxic Algal Blooms Off Washington Coast
Contact: Mark Wells, (207) 581-4322; Aimee Dolloff, (207) 581-3571
ORONO, Maine – Toxic algal blooms have the potential to produce devastating impacts on fishing industries in coastal communities, and also can pose a threat to the health and safety of humans and animals. To better understand the potential threat to coastal Maine waters, University of Maine marine sciences professor Mark Wells is studying harmful diatom blooms off the coast of Washington.
Toxigenic diatoms of the genus, Pseudo-nitzschia, also occur in the Gulf of Maine and sometimes produce domoic acid, a highly potent neurotoxin, according to Wells.
So far, toxic conditions have been infrequent and only measured in the Bay of Fundy region, but if the contaminated shellfish are consumed by humans the syndrome, known as amnesic shellfish poisoning, can be debilitating and fatal, says Wells.
“We were entirely unaware that these diatoms produced a toxin until late 1987 when three persons died and over a hundred were stricken on Prince Edward Island after eating blue mussels,” says Wells.
The toxin attacks neurons of the brain and in addition to humans can cause adverse health effects or even death in birds and marine mammals that consume affected marine species.
It now is suspected that a toxic diatom bloom in the early 1960’s was the cause of very unusual seabird behavior in the coastal town of Monterey, Cali. The event may have been the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” since the filmmaker used to spend summers in the area, Wells noted.
The UMaine professor was one of several scientists who participated in the recent study, which was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation. Their research reveals that a part of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which separates Washington state from Canada’s British Columbia, is a hot spot for toxic diatom cells that under certain conditions are transported to coastal areas where they can trigger blooms that ultimately force the closure of Washington state shellfish beds.
Scientists and their students took thousands of measurements at sea and conducted experiments onboard research vessels and in their laboratories to better understand the factors that initiate and sustain the growth of this toxic alga and determine why it produces the deadly biotoxin, according to a recent press release from NOAA.
“This eddy region off the West Coast is the only place known to consistently have toxic cells, and so it is an ideal field laboratory for us to study what conditions cause these cells to produce the toxin,” says Wells. “What we learn there may help explain why blooms on the Maine coast generally produce little toxin, and determine whether human activities might increase the frequency of toxic conditions along the Maine coast.”
The collaborative study, conducted by a team of scientists and students from NOAA’s Fisheries Service, San Francisco State University and the universities of Washington, Maine and Western Ontario, is part of the Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms Pacific Northwest program.
The study, titled “Variability of Pseudo-nitzschia and domoic acid in the Juan de Fuca eddy region and its adjacent shelves,” was published last month in “Limnology and Oceanography.” Vera Trainer (NOAA Fisheries); Barbara Hickey and Evelyn Lessard (University of Washington); William Cochlan (San Francisco State University); Charles Trick (The University of Western Ontario); and Amoreena MacFadyen and Stephanie Moore (University of Washington) are the other authors listed on the paper.