Abstracts:

Algal toxins in marine food webs

Patricia A. Tester1, Damian Shea2, Gregory J. Doucette3, Youlian Pan3 & Christopher A. Scholin4

1National Ocean Service, NOAA, Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research, 101 Pivers Island Road, Beaufort, North Carolina 28516, USA, 2Department of Toxicology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, North Carolina State University, 3709 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, North Carolina 27607, USA 3National Ocean Service, NOAA, Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research, 219 Fort Johnson Road, Charleston, South Carolina 29412, USA, 4Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, P.O. Box 628, Moss Landing, California 93939, USA

Herbivorous copepods are key intermediates for the transfer of algal toxins into marine food webs. Toxins from the dinoflagellate Gymnodinium breve have been traced through experimental food chains, from copepod grazers to juvenile fish. Field samples taken during a G. breve bloom confirm toxin transfer also occurs in natural populations. Brevetoxins (Pb-Tx2 and PbTx-3) were detected in sediment, water column particulates, size fractionated zooplankton, and tissues of fish, sea turtles and marine mammals. A new analytical technique, micellar electrokinetic capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence allowed measurements of toxin standards at ~0.10 fg and detection limits in tissue of ~4 pg g-1. In similar experiments, copepods fed on the diatom Pseudo-nitzschia multiseries ( MU-1) had grazing rates as high as 1,800 cells copepod hr-1 and results of receptor binding assays indicated a range of 3-7 ng domoic acid per copepod within 3 hours.

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