Reviewing interspecies interactions as a driving force affecting the community structure in lakes via cyanotoxins

Azam Omidi, Stephan Pflugmacher, Aaron Kaplan, Young Jun Kim, Maranda Esterhuizen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

The escalating occurrence of toxic cyanobacterial blooms worldwide is a matter of concern. Global warming and eutrophication play a major role in the regularity of cyanobacterial blooms, which has noticeably shifted towards the predomination of toxic populations. Therefore, understanding the effects of cyanobacterial toxins in aquatic ecosystems and their advantages to the producers are of growing interest. In this paper, the current literature is critically reviewed to provide further insights into the ecological contribution of cyanotoxins in the variation of the lake community diversity and structure through interspecies interplay. The most commonly detected and studied cyanobacterial toxins, namely the microcystins, anatoxins, saxitoxins, cylindrospermopsins and β-N-methylamino-L-alanine, and their ecotoxicity on various trophic levels are discussed. This work addresses the environmental characterization of pure toxins, toxin-containing crude extracts and filtrates of single and mixed cultures in interspecies interactions by inducing different physiological and metabolic responses. More data on these interactions under natural conditions and la-boratory-based studies using direct co-cultivation approaches will provide more substantial infor-mation on the consequences of cyanotoxins in the natural ecosystem. This review is beneficial for understanding cyanotoxin-mediated interspecies interactions, developing bloom mitigation tech-nologies and robustly assessing the hazards posed by toxin-producing cyanobacteria to humans and other organisms.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1583
JournalMicroorganisms
Volume9
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Allelopathy
  • Cyanobacteria
  • Cyanotoxins
  • Interspecies interactions
  • Lake ecosystems

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