Summer Microcystis bloom in Castle Rock Pond, Norman, Oklahoma. Credit: Haiyuan Cai
Harmful algal blooms create challenges across the globe for water high quality and well being threat administration for people, wildlife and pets. A crew of researchers from the University of Oklahoma is main an effort towards higher administration of Microcystis blooms and toxins by way of a brand new genome-based taxonomy.
OU Regents’ Professor of Biology Dave Hambright and members of his Plankton Ecology and Limnology Lab, along side OU microbiology professor Lee Krumholz, collaborated on this challenge with college members on the University of North Carolina, James Madison University and Auburn University. The outcomes of their work had been revealed in Science Advances.
Through the event of a brand new genome-based taxonomy, researchers for the primary time will have the ability to characterize ecological niches of Microcystis, together with nutrient necessities and seasonality, and in the end, management dangerous Microcystis blooms. The crew has developed genetic markers that may enable researchers to determine Microcystis species current in water techniques. In their paper, the researchers have recognized 16 distinctive species, with as many as 30 or extra doubtless, which are genetically distinct, however that don’t correspond to present morphologically outlined species.
“This new genome-based taxonomy lays the premise for researchers to formulate science-based proactive administration applications to rid our waters of dangerous Microcystis blooms,” Hambright stated. “Our improved capability to determine and research species of this algae will support our capability to cut back well being dangers, in addition to handle and shield our more and more weak water assets.”
Understanding Microcystis ecology and evolution is foundational to lake and water high quality administration…
2023-01-13 14:11:04 Research improves capability to determine and research algae species
Link from phys.org