Global solutions to regional problems: Collecting global expertise to address the problem of harmful cyanobacterial blooms. A Lake Erie case study

George S Bullerjahn; Robert M McKay; Timothy W Davis; David B Baker; Gregory L Boyer; Lesley V D'Anglada; Gregory J Doucette; Jeff C Ho; Elena G Irwin; Catherine L Kling; Raphael M Kudela; Rainer Kurmayer; Anna M Michalak; Joseph D Ortiz; Timothy G Otten; Hans W Paerl; Boqiang Qin; Brent L Sohngen; Richard P Stumpf; Petra M Visser; Steven W Wilhelm

doi:10.1016/j.hal.2016.01.003

Global solutions to regional problems: Collecting global expertise to address the problem of harmful cyanobacterial blooms. A Lake Erie case study

Harmful Algae. 2016 Apr:54:223-238. doi: 10.1016/j.hal.2016.01.003.

Authors

George S Bullerjahn¹, Robert M McKay², Timothy W Davis³, David B Baker⁴, Gregory L Boyer⁵, Lesley V D'Anglada⁶, Gregory J Doucette⁷, Jeff C Ho⁸, Elena G Irwin⁹, Catherine L Kling¹⁰, Raphael M Kudela¹¹, Rainer Kurmayer¹², Anna M Michalak¹³, Joseph D Ortiz¹⁴, Timothy G Otten¹⁵, Hans W Paerl¹⁶, Boqiang Qin¹⁷, Brent L Sohngen⁹, Richard P Stumpf¹⁸, Petra M Visser¹⁹, Steven W Wilhelm²⁰

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biological Sciences, Bowling Green State University, Life Sciences Building, Bowling Green, OH, 43403, USA. Electronic address: bullerj@bgsu.edu.
² Department of Biological Sciences, Bowling Green State University, Life Sciences Building, Bowling Green, OH, 43403, USA.
³ NOAA-GLERL, 4840 South State Rd., Ann Arbor, MI, 48108, USA.
⁴ National Center for Water Quality Research, Heidelberg University, Tiffin, OH, 44883, USA.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 1 Forestry Dr. Syracuse, NY, 13210, USA.
⁶ US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Science and Technology, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC, 20460, USA.
⁷ NOAA/National Ocean Service, 219 Fort Johnson Rd., Charleston, SC, 29412, USA.
⁸ Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA; Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, 260 Panama St., Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
⁹ Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, Ohio State University, 2120 Fyffe Rd., Columbus, OH, 43210, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Economics, 578 Heady Hall, Ames, IA, 50011-2271, USA.
¹¹ Ocean Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA.
¹² Research Institute for Limnology, University of Innsbruck, Mondseestrasse 9, Mondsee, 5310, Austria.
¹³ Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, 260 Panama St., Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Geology, 336 McGilvrey Hall, Kent State University, Kent, OH, 44242, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Microbiology, Oregon State University, 226 Nash Hall, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA.
¹⁶ University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences, 3431 Arendell Street, Morehead City, NC, 28557, USA.
¹⁷ Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, 73 East Beijing Road, Nanjing, 210008, China.
¹⁸ NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, 1305 East-West Highway code N/SCI1, Silver Spring, MD, 20910, USA.
¹⁹ Department of Aquatic Microbiology, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, PO Box 94248, 1090, GE, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
²⁰ Department of Microbiology, University of Tennessee, 1414 West Cumberland Avenue, Knoxville, TN, 37996-0845, USA.

Abstract

In early August 2014, the municipality of Toledo, OH (USA) issued a 'do not drink' advisory on their water supply directly affecting over 400,000 residential customers and hundreds of businesses (Wilson, 2014). This order was attributable to levels of microcystin, a potent liver toxin, which rose to 2.5μgL^-1 in finished drinking water. The Toledo crisis afforded an opportunity to bring together scientists from around the world to share ideas regarding factors that contribute to bloom formation and toxigenicity, bloom and toxin detection as well as prevention and remediation of bloom events. These discussions took place at an NSF- and NOAA-sponsored workshop at Bowling Green State University on April 13 and 14, 2015. In all, more than 100 attendees from six countries and 15 US states gathered together to share their perspectives. The purpose of this review is to present the consensus summary of these issues that emerged from discussions at the Workshop. As additional reports in this special issue provide detailed reviews on many major CHAB species, this paper focuses on the general themes common to all blooms, such as bloom detection, modeling, nutrient loading, and strategies to reduce nutrients.

Keywords: CHAB; Cyanobacteria; Lake Erie; Microcystin; Nitrogen; Phosphorus.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Review

MeSH terms

China
Cyanobacteria / physiology*
Environmental Monitoring / methods*
Eutrophication
Great Lakes Region
Harmful Algal Bloom*
Lakes / microbiology*

Grants and funding

P 24070/FWF_/Austrian Science Fund FWF/Austria