ScienceDaily (July 23, 2012) — A University of Connecticut researcher and his team have discovered that a species of tiny aquatic organism prominent in harmful algal blooms sometimes called "red tide" is even deadlier than first thought, with potential consequences for entire marine food chains.
Professor Hans Dam and his research group in the school's Department of Marine Sciences have discovered that the plankton speciesAlexandrium tamarense contains not one but two different types of toxins, one that's deadly to large organisms and one that's deadly to small predators.
"If it's killing multicellular animals with one toxin and small protists with another, it could be the killer of the ocean world," he says.
Dam speculates that this ability to harm both large and small oceanic predators could lead to disruptions in the marine food web during large Alexandrium blooms, like the red tide that occurred along the Northeast coast in 2005, severely affecting the Cape Cod area.
Read on: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120723134743.htm
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