Journal ArticleDOI
Climate change: A catalyst for global expansion of harmful cyanobacterial blooms
Hans W. Paerl,Jef Huisman +1 more
TLDR
Recent studies revealing that regional and global climatic change may benefit various species of harmful cyanobacteria by increasing their growth rates, dominance, persistence, geographic distributions and activity are reviewed.Abstract:
Cyanobacteria are the Earth's oldest known oxygen-evolving photosynthetic microorganisms, and they have had major impacts on shaping our current atmosphere and biosphere. Their long evolutionary history has enabled cyanobacteria to develop survival strategies and persist as important primary producers during numerous geochemical and climatic changes that have taken place on Earth during the past 3.5 billion years. Today, some cyanobacterial species form massive surface growths or 'blooms' that produce toxins, cause oxygen depletion and alter food webs, posing a major threat to drinking and irrigation water supplies, fishing and recreational use of surface waters worldwide. These harmful cyanobacteria can take advantage of anthropogenically induced nutrient over-enrichment (eutrophication), and hydrologic modifications (water withdrawal, reservoir construction). Here, we review recent studies revealing that regional and global climatic change may benefit various species of harmful cyanobacteria by increasing their growth rates, dominance, persistence, geographic distributions and activity. Future climatic change scenarios predict rising temperatures, enhanced vertical stratification of aquatic ecosystems, and alterations in seasonal and interannual weather patterns (including droughts, storms, floods); these changes all favour harmful cyanobacterial blooms in eutrophic waters. Therefore, current mitigation and water management strategies, which are largely based on nutrient input and hydrologic controls, must also accommodate the environmental effects of global warming.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
The rise of harmful cyanobacteria blooms: The potential roles of eutrophication and climate change
TL;DR: A review of the relationship between eutrophication, climate change and cyanobacterial blooms in freshwater, estuarine, and marine ecosystems can be found in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate change: links to global expansion of harmful cyanobacteria.
Hans W. Paerl,Valerie J. Paul +1 more
TL;DR: Overall, stricter nutrient management will likely be the most feasible and practical approach to long-term CyanoHAB control in a warmer, stormier and more extreme world.
Journal ArticleDOI
Emerging threats and persistent conservation challenges for freshwater biodiversity
Andrea J. Reid,Andrew K. Carlson,Irena F. Creed,Erika J. Eliason,Peter Gell,Pieter T. J. Johnson,Karen A. Kidd,Tyson J. MacCormack,Julian D. Olden,Steve J. Ormerod,John P. Smol,William W. Taylor,Klement Tockner,Jesse C. Vermaire,David Dudgeon,Steven J. Cooke +15 more
TL;DR: Efforts to reverse global trends in freshwater degradation now depend on bridging an immense gap between the aspirations of conservation biologists and the accelerating rate of species endangerment.
Journal ArticleDOI
Harmful cyanobacterial blooms: causes, consequences, and controls.
TL;DR: In this article, the applicability and feasibility of various controls and management approaches for natural waters and drinking water supplies are discussed, and a key underlying approach that should be considered in almost all instances is nutrient (both N and P) input reductions; which have been shown to effectively reduce cyanobacterial biomass, and therefore limit health risks and frequencies of hypoxic events.
Journal ArticleDOI
A review of the global ecology, genomics, and biogeography of the toxic cyanobacterium, Microcystis spp.
Matthew J. Harke,Morgan M. Steffen,Christopher J. Gobler,Timothy G. Otten,Steven W. Wilhelm,Susanna A. Wood,Hans W. Paerl +6 more
TL;DR: The ability of Microcystis assemblages to minimize their mortality losses by resisting grazing by zooplankton and bivalves, as well as viral lysis, and discuss factors facilitating assemblage resilience are highlighted.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Blooms like it hot
Hans W. Paerl,Jef Huisman +1 more
TL;DR: A link exists between global warming and the worldwide proliferation of harmful cyanobacterial blooms as discussed by the authors, and it has been shown that global warming can be linked with the proliferation of these blooms.
Journal ArticleDOI
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