Background: During the last decades the frequency and global distribution of toxic cyanobacteria blooms has increased globally, which has been attributed to the eutrophication and climate change. In Chile there have been reports on blooms in aquatic ecosystem in localities with high density population and on the presence of five congeners of microcystins but only two documented toxics blooms with hundreds fish kills. We investigated the presence of toxic cyanobacteria blooms in the Lo Galindo urban lake, Concepción city, and the environmental factors that influence the abundance of cyanobacteria and microcystins concentration. Lo Galindo Lake, is used for various recreational and eventually as a drinking water source. Results: Toxic blooms of Microcystis aeruginosa are developed in Lo Galindo lake, those that occur throughout the year in a wide range of environmental conditions, forming scums blooms during summer and dispersive blooms in all seasons. There are different microcystin congeners, the most frequent congener was MC-RR (21 %) and the highest concentration corresponded to 115.4 µg L -1 MC-LR.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.