Distribution of hepatotoxic cyanobacterial blooms in Belgium and Luxembourg

Raphaël Willame, Tomasz Jurczak, Jean François Iffly, Tomas Kull, Jussi Meriluoto, Lucien Hoffmann*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

72 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A survey of the distribution of cyanobacterial blooms in the southern part of Belgium, in Luxembourg as well as in bordering northeastern France was carried out for 4 years (1997, 1999-2001). In the 64 cyanobacterial bloom samples collected, Microcystis as well as Planktothrix were the most frequently encountered dominant bloom formers, followed by Anabaena, Woronichinia, and Aphanizomenon. The relative frequency of (co-)dominant genera was highly correlated to the geology of the catchments. Microcystins were found in 53% of the analysed blooms and their presence was mainly assigned to Microcystis dominance. The highest microcystin concentration of 2231 μg g-1 seston DW was recorded in a sample dominated by Woronichinia naegeliana. Among the 6 investigated microcystin variants, MC-LR was the most frequently detected whereas MC-LY was never revealed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)99-117
Number of pages19
JournalHydrobiologia
Volume551
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2005
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Keywords

  • Belgium
  • Blooms
  • Cyanobacteria
  • Ecology
  • Luxembourg
  • Microcystins

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