Does anybody know that can the Ceratium furca and Ceratium fusus produce toxic？Are they Harmful algae？THX！
Dear Zhenfan Chen
The dinoflagellates Ceratium furca and Ceratium fusus are two of the most common bloomforming species found in the coastal and estuarine waters of the world (Baek et al. 2008). The species Ceratium furca has toxicity registered in the works of Mijares et al. (1985), Licea et al. (2004) and Orellana-Cepeda et al. (2004).
Best Regards
Cihelio Alves Amorim
Zhenfan:
Kindly have a look at this link for insights:
http://www.algaebase.org/pdf/AC100CF31d52d1FD24UMV3DB4439/Licea_et_al.pdf
Best
Syed
To my knowledge Ceratium species do not produce toxins, however they can be considered as "harmful algae" if they deplete nutrients under bloom conditions. The papers that Cihelio cited do not prove toxicity of the species either but only deduct it from their dominance in blooms that led to fish kills (Mijares et al, 1985 & Orella-Cepeda et al, 2004). The putative toxin that Mijares et al found could therefore derive from another phytoplankton species that was present. The publications of Licea et al (2004), and Orellana-Cepeda et al. (2004) even mentioned that Ceratium was non-toxic.
So, harmful - yes, toxic - most likely not.
Zhenfan:
You may like to have a look also at this link to understand possible toxicity of the species concerned:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3153226/
Best
Syed
Dear Lydia,
in your review you list the two Ceratium species as "potentially tocix", meaning "... characterized as species carrying the toxigenic potential according to toxicological analyses...". I can unfortunately only access one of the four papers cited for this (Spatharis et al. 2009) which lists C. furca & C. fusus as "bloom-forming" (with fish kills due to anoxic red tides) instead of "potential toxic" and this paper does not contain a toxicological analysis. Would it be possible for you to send me ([email protected]) one of the other three papers you cited that contained a positive toxicological analysis for the two species as I would be very interested in this. Thank you in advance!
Best wishes,
René
Many thanks for all of you to help me, and I will check it out later. Thanks again for all of your support!
Zhenfan et al.:
In the link cited above by me (Toxins, 2010), the four species of Ceratium including C. furca and C. fusus are distinctly described as of Unknown Toxicity causing harmful Non-Toxic blooms.
Best
Syed
according to my experience, these species are "nuisance"; bloom forming species
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