Cyanobacterial Blooms: Current Knowledge and New Perspectives

Abstract

Cyanobacteria are ancient prokaryotes responsible for bloom formation in many freshwater resources worldwide. These dense agglomerations are a result of the rise of nutrient input (N and P) or temperature. The toxin content and illness associated with contact impair human health with repercussions in water quality. Produced by a wide variety of cyanobacteria species, CyanoBlooms are in need of a literature review to achieve a global scenario of its current impacts on freshwater resources aiming at changing behaviors towards CyanoBlooms globally and by making communities more resilient to this recurrent problem. With a global distribution, recent data highlight the impacts of climate change on CyanoBlooms occurrence, namely through the rise of temperature and nutrient input from storms and heavy rainfall. With current worldwide regulations based on the enumeration of the nutrient input of freshwater ecosystems, the increase in field monitoring regarding CyanoBlooms occurrence is demanded since evaluation of this parameter may conceal these massive agglomerations resulting in human health episodes and cyanotoxin outbreaks.

Keywords

• cyanobacteria
• cyanotoxins
• analytical methods
• molecular methods
• artificial intelligence