Cysts blooms

ShellHsh Toxicity and Dormant Cysts in Toxic Dinoflagellate Blooms... 

Two additional functions can be added to this list cysts can be direct sources of toxicity, and their formation can be a major factor in bloom termination. 

The purpose of this paper is to examine our present knowledge of the cysts of the toxic Gonyaulax species to see whether these hypothetical considerations are valid representations of the actual roles cysts play in toxic dinoflagellate blooms and shellfish toxicity. 

It is important to recognize that the foregoing discussion is not simply an intellectual exercise attempting to demonstrate the seemingly obvious connection between cysts and bloom initiation. 

There are a variety of ways that toxic Gonyaulax cells could be introduced to areas with no previous history of PSP, and most of these involve cysts. The most common claim is that transport of an established motile population by tidal and large-scale circulation patterns permits a species to deposit cysts in new areas as seeds for future blooms (1, 9, 10, 31). Within this framework, the cyst is most important in those areas where advection of... 

In general, it may never be possible to prove that species dispersal is facilitated by dredging, shellfish transplants,or boat traffic. Here again we are faced with mechanisms that are theoretically possible but that may be of minor practical concern relative to the introduction of cysts to new areas through advective transport of established blooms. There is little doubt that this latter mechanism has been, and will continue to be, of major importance to the geographic distribution of the toxic Gonyaulax species. 

Anderson, D.M. and Wall, D., Potential importance of benthic cysts of Gonyaulax tamarensis and G. excavata in initiating toxic dinoflagellate blooms, J. Phycol. 14, 224, 1978. 

Kim, Y.O. et al.. Role of cyst germination in the bloom initiation of Alexandrium tamarense (Dinophyceae) in Masan Bay, Korea, Aquat. Microb. Ecol. 29, 279, 2002. 

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