Over the last 30 years, urbanization has increased along the Indian River Lagoon, which stretches about 250 kilometers on Florida s east coast. As a result, water quality has deteriorated and there is widespread loss of seagrasses and persistent harmful algal blooms, which threaten ecological, human and marine animal health, such as manatees.
In this valuable and vulnerable system, two types of toxic blooms raise significant concerns: Microcystis aeruginosa (blue-green algae known to produce microcystin toxin) and Pyrodinium bahamense, which produce a neurotoxin called saxitoxin. Saxitoxin causes paralytic shellfish poisoning, which has caused dozens of fatal and non-fatal poisonings worldwide.
Specific health effects due to concentrations of toxins in surface water of the Indian River Lagoon are not fully understood. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in collaboration with the St. Johns River Water Management District collected sur