Temporal Dynamics of Cyanobacterial Bloom Community Composition and Toxin Production from Urban Lakes.
Julie A Maurer, Runjie Xia, Andrew M Kim, Nana Oblie, Sierra Hefferan, Hannuo Xie, Angela Slitt, Bethany D Jenkins, Matthew J Bertin
Author Information
Julie A Maurer: Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Rhode Island, 120 Flagg Road, Kingston, RI 02881, United States.
Runjie Xia: Department of Chemistry, Case Western Reserve University, 2080 Adelbert Road, Cleveland, OH 44106, United States.
Andrew M Kim: Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of Rhode Island, 7 Greenhouse Road, Kingston, RI 02881, United States.
Nana Oblie: Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of Rhode Island, 7 Greenhouse Road, Kingston, RI 02881, United States.
Sierra Hefferan: Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of Rhode Island, 7 Greenhouse Road, Kingston, RI 02881, United States.
Hannuo Xie: Department of Chemistry, Case Western Reserve University, 2080 Adelbert Road, Cleveland, OH 44106, United States.
Angela Slitt: Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of Rhode Island, 7 Greenhouse Road, Kingston, RI 02881, United States.
Bethany D Jenkins: Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Rhode Island, 120 Flagg Road, Kingston, RI 02881, United States. ORCID
Matthew J Bertin: Department of Chemistry, Case Western Reserve University, 2080 Adelbert Road, Cleveland, OH 44106, United States. ORCID
With a long evolutionary history and a need to adapt to a changing environment, cyanobacteria in freshwater systems use specialized metabolites for communication, defense, and physiological processes. Furthermore, many cyanobacterial specialized metabolites and toxins present significant human health concerns due to their liver toxicity and their potential impact to drinking water. Gaps in knowledge exist with respect to changes in species diversity and toxin production during a cyanobacterial bloom (cyanoHAB) event; addressing these gaps will improve understanding of impacts to public and ecological health. In the current report we detail community and toxin composition dynamics during a late bloom period. Species diversity decreased at all study sites over the course of the bloom event, and toxin production reached a maximum at the midpoint of the event. We also isolated three new microcystins from a dominated bloom (), two of which contained unusual doubly homologated tyrosine residues ( and ). This work provokes intriguing questions with respect to the use of allelopathy by organisms in these systems and the presence of emerging toxic compounds that can impact public health.
