The increasing occurrence of Microcystis blooms is of great concern to public health and ecosystem due to the potential hepatotoxic microcystins(MCs)produced by these colonial cyanobacteria.In order to interpret the relationships between variations of Microcystis morphospecies and extracellular MC concentrations,the seasonal dynamics of phytoplankton community composition,MC concentrations,and environmental parameters were monitored monthly from August,2009 to July,2010.The results indicated that Microcystis dominated total phytoplankton abundance from May to December(96%–99%of total biovolume),with toxic Microcystis viridis and non-toxic Microcystis wesenbergii dominating after July(constituting 65%–95%of the Microcystis population),followed by M.viridis as the sole dominant species from November to January(49%–93%).Correlation analysis revealed that water temperature and nutrient were the most important variables accounting for the occurrence of M.wesenbergii,while the dominance of M.viridis was related with nitrite and nitrate.The relatively low content of MCs was explained by the association with a large proportion of M.viridis and M.wesenbergii,small colony size of Microcystis populations,and low water temperature,pH and dissolved oxygen.The extracellular MC(mean of 0.5±0.2μg/L)of water samples analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA)demonstrated the low concentrations of MC in Dianchi Lake which implied the low potential risk for human health in the basin.The survey provides the first whole lake study of the occurrence and seasonal variability of Microcystis population and extracellular MCs that are of particular interest for water quality monitoring and management.
Yanlong WuLin LiNanqin GanLingling ZhengHaiyan MaKun ShanJin LiuBangding XiaoLirong Song
Toxic cyanobacterial blooms constitute a threat to human safety because Microcystis sp. releases microcystins during growth, and particularly during cell death. Therefore, analysis of toxic and nontoxic Microcystis in natural communities is required in order to assess and predict bloom dynamics and toxin production by these organisms. In this study, an analysis combining fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with flow cytometry (FCM) was used to discriminate between toxic and nontoxic Microcystis and also to quantify the percentage of toxic Microcystis present in blooms. The results demonstrate that the combination of FISH and flow cytometry is a useful approach for studying the ecology of Microcystis toxin production and for providing an early warning for toxic Microcystis blooms.
GAN NanQin, HUANG Qun, ZHENG LingLing & SONG LiRong State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
