Alexandrium tamarense/catenella Blooms in the Southwestern Atlantic: Paralytic Shellfish Toxin Production and Its Trophic Transference

Occurrence of Marine Biotoxins and Shellfish Poisoning Events and Their Causative Organisms in Argentine Marine Waters

“…The dominant PSP-producing species in the Argentine Sea is Alexandrium catenella, initially described as Gonyaulax excavata, later re-identified as Alexandrium tamarense, and very recently recognized as Alexandrium catenella following ribosomal phylogenetic studies (John et al, 2014;Prud'homme van Reine, 2017). Blooms of A. catenella have been detected frequently since 1980 and were recorded in a latitudinal gradient from the Province of Buenos Aires to the Beagle Channel in almost the entire coastal ecosystem ( Figure 3; Carreto et al, 1981;Esteves et al, 1992;Benavides et al, 1995;Akselman, 1996;Carreto et al, 1998;Gayoso and Fulco, 2006;Montoya et al, 2010;Krock et al, 2015a;Fabro et al, 2017;Montoya et al, 2018). Such blooms have been recorded annually through spring and summer seasons from South Patagonia all the way up to Uruguay Méndez et al, 2001).…”

“…Several Argentinean PSP events have been documented since 1980 that in some cases have led to fish, bird, and whale mortalities and even human deaths (Elbusto et al, 1981;Carreto et al, 1981Carreto et al, , 1986Vecchio et al, 1986;Andrinolo et al, 1999;Benavides et al, 1995;Montoya et al, 1996Montoya et al, , 1998Montoya et al, , 2018Uhart et al, 2004;Montoya and Carreto, 2007;Wilson et al, 2015). Toxin profiles of several isolates of Argentinean A. catenella have been analyzed and found to be mostly dominated by the N-sulfocarbamoyl variants C1/C2 and gonyautoxins GTX1/GTX4.…”

“…Negri et al, 2004;Sastre et al, 2007;Cadaillón, 2012;Krock et al, 2015a;Almandoz et al, 2017), 2. Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP; Carreto et al, 1981Carreto et al, , 1986Carreto et al, , 1998Carreto et al, , 2007Esteves et al, 1992;Benavides et al, 1995;Akselman et al, 1998;Gayoso, 2001; Montoya et al, 2006Montoya et al, , 2018Santinelli et al, 1994aSantinelli et al, , 2002Cadaillón, 2012;Sunesen et al, 2014;Krock et al, 2015a), 3. Spiroimine shellfish poisoning (SSP) (Almandoz et al, 2014;Fabro et al, 2017), 4.…”

Spatiotemporal distribution of paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxins in shellfish from Argentine Patagonian coast

“…As it is well known, environmental parameters such as irradiance, temperature, salinity and inorganic nutrients affect toxin content and composition of Alexandrium strains (Anderson et al., 2012). Thus, a potential reason for the differences in regional toxicity could be linked to strain-specific responses to environmental conditions (Montoya et al., 2018). In agreement with this, Montoya et al.…”

“…On the Argentine coast, the first PSP outbreak was documented in the Valdés Peninsula in 1980, associated with a bloom of the species Alexandrium catenella (as A. tamarense ) (Carreto et al., 1986). Since then, blooms of Alexandrium catenella have been recurrently observed along the Argentine coast, causing human intoxications and death from contaminated shellfish, loss of seafood resources, and death of marine fauna (Montoya et al., 2018, and references therein). In particular, human poisonings and deaths were reported in northern Patagonia in 1985 due to consumption of contaminated bivalve molluscs in Engaño Bay (Vecchio et al., 1986; Santinelli et al., 2002), and a new PSP outbreak occurred in 1988 in Nueva Bay (Nuevo Gulf) (Esteves et al., 1992; Santinelli et al., 2002).…”