California Sea Grant College Program

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are an escalating problem in coastal ecosystems, inflicting massive economic losses on commercial fisheries and causing death and illness to both humans and marine fauna. Paralleling the rise of marine HAB problems, cyanobacteria (previously identified as "blue-green algae") have a worldwide distribution and can form extensive blooms in freshwater and estuarine habitat. Microcystins are fast becoming a global health concern, with severe and recurrent blooms with toxin elaboration reported globally, including central California. Until recently, microcystin intoxication was considered a public health issue mainly of freshwater habitat, reflected by the vast body of published literature on potential human health risks due to microcystin exposure in rivers, lakes, reservoirs and freshwater aquaculture. In contrast, monitoring of marine water and seafood for similar risks has been limited, despite confirmation of outflows of microcystin-contaminated freshwater to the ocean. A passive sampling method for determination of dissolved toxins in seawater, Solid Phase Adsorption Toxin Tracking (SPATT), allows for field-deployment of adsorbent resin sealed within a polyester mesh bag and have been used for a suite of lipophilic toxins, but until recently have never been evaluated for use with hydrophilic (water-soluble) toxins such as domoic acid (amnesic shellfish poisoning) and saxitoxin (the primary toxin associated with paralytic shellfish poisoning).