Objective
In this proposal an early warning system is developed for the development oftoxic cyanobacteria in lakes and reservoirs. The project has three parts. Theme 1The development of two population dynamical models with which the development of populations of toxic cyanobacteria can be predicted. A model will be made for scum forming species (like Microcystis) and one for dispersed species (like Planktothrix). When in spring or in early summer toxic populations have been recognized the model would be used to predict the development of this bloom. In the models hydrophysics play an important role. The model will be validated for a larger part of Europe using data from a statistical study concerning the relation of cyanobacterial growth and environmental conditions and the results of a European study (theme 3). Remote sensing will be used to incorporate the inhomogeneous character of the blooms.
Theme 2The early detection of toxic producing populations and the conditions under which toxins are produced. Analytical chemical methods will be used and developed. Special attention will be paid on the mass spectrometric method (MALDI-TOF) to analyse cyanobacterial peptide toxins. The method will be compared with results from HPLC. LC-MS and ELISA. The analyses of neosaxitoxins with ELISA will be developed.
he discovery of genes involved in microcystin production makes it possible toinclude DNA-based methods in the project. A PCR protocol will be establishedfor the detection of the genes involved in the microcyst in production in the most relevant species. At the end of the project methods must be available to analyse and to recognize toxic populations in field samples. To estimate how important environmental factors are for the selection of toxics trains in the lake and to estimate the influence of the environmental factors on the production of toxins in toxic strains, an ecophysiological study will be done with different toxin producing species. These data will be incorporated in the model development of theme 1.Theme 3To get a survey concerning the distribution of toxic and non-toxic strains and species over whole Europe a broad European transect study will be done of the distrubution of these species over Europe. 14 lakes will be studied from Finland till Portugal. The cyanobacterial species will be studied in detail, using morphology and molecular markers paying special attention on the distribution of toxic species and strains over the climatic zones of Europe. The results of it will be incorporated in the models developed in theme. Concluding: by the development of an early recognition of toxic cyanobacteriain field samples, a study of the distribution of (toxic) cyanobacteria over Europe and the development of predicting models an early warning system will be presented for toxic cyanobacteria 0201
Fields of science
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
1018 WS Amsterdam
Netherlands