In summer of 2022, a research cruise detected a massive harmful algal bloom (HAB) in the Bering Strait region of western Alaska.
In summer of 2022, a research cruise detected a massive harmful algal bloom (HAB) in the Bering Strait region of western Alaska. This expedition provided a dramatic example of science utilizing new technology to track a neurotoxic HAB, and effectively communicate information that protects remote coastal communities in real-time.
The large spatial scale, high cell density, long duration, and potent toxicity of the 2022 HAB event “posed an unprecedented risk to human and ecosystem health as well as maritime subsistence harvest activities in the Bering Strait region and beyond,” according to the journal article “Tracking a large-scale and highly toxic Arctic algal bloom: rapid detection and risk communication,” published in Limnology and Oceanography Letters.
Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and its partners, noted that, to their knowledge, the 2022 event was the largest HAB event documented in polar waters to be caused by the single-celled organism Alexandrium catenella, which produces neurotoxins called paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs). Toxins produced by this organism as it proliferates or “blooms” can accumulate in organisms that consume the algae, and the toxins can then be transferred through the food web causing illness or mortality of marine animals and potentially fatal Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) in people who eat contaminated seafoods.
Read more at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Image: WHOI-MIT Joint Program Student Evie Fachon arranges Alexandrium cultures in the incubator at WHOI’s Anderson Lab. (Photo by Daniel Hentz, ©Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
