The role of nitrogen fixation in cyanobacterial bloom toxicity in a temperate, eutrophic lake.

ABSTRACT: Toxic cyanobacterial blooms threaten freshwaters worldwide but have proven difficult to predict because the mechanisms of bloom formation and toxin production are unknown, especially on weekly time scales. Water quality management continues to focus on aggregated metrics, such as chlorophyll and total nutrients, which may not be sufficient to explain complex community changes and functions such as toxin production. For example, nitrogen (N) speciation and cycling play an important role, on daily time scales, in shaping cyanobacterial communities because declining N has been shown to select for N fixers. In addition, subsequent N pulses from N(2) fixation may stimulate and sustain toxic cyanobacterial growth. Herein, we describe how rapid early summer declines in N followed by bursts of N f

SUBMITTER: Beversdorf LJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3566065 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature