Special Issue "Cyanotoxins in Bloom: Ever-Increasing Occurrence and Global Distribution of Freshwater Cyanotoxins from Planktic and Benthic Cyanobacteria"
A special issue of Toxins (ISSN 2072-6651). This special issue belongs to the section "Marine and Freshwater Toxins".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.
Special Issue Editors
Interests: Cyanotoxins; cyanobacterial metabolites; cyanobacterial blooms; detection/determination of cyanotoxins; mass spectrometry; water treatment; advanced oxidation processes; environmental chemistry
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Interests: advanced oxidation processes; reactive oxygen species; environmental analytical chemistry; emerging pollutants; cyanotoxins; transformation products; cyanobacterial bioactive metabolites
Interests: advanced oxidation processes; environmental analytical chemistry; cyanotoxins; transformation/degradation products of cyanotoxins; bioactive metabolites
Special Issue Information
At present, cyanobacteria and their toxins (also known as cyanotoxins) constitute a major threat for freshwater resources worldwide. Cyanotoxin occurrence in water bodies around the globe is constantly increasing, whereas emerging, less studied or completely new variants and congeners of various chemical classes of cyanotoxins, as well as their degradation/transformation products are often detected. In addition to planctic cyanobacteria, benthic cyanobacteria, in many cases, appear to be important toxin producers, although far less studied and more difficult to manage and control. This Special Issue aims to highlight novel research results on the structural diversity of cyanotoxins from planktic and benthic cyanobacteria, as well as on their expanding global geographical spread in freshwaters. In particular, the Issue welcomes research papers on :
- Novel and improved methods of sampling, extraction, detection, and quantitation of cyanotoxins, with an emphasis on multivariant/class methods (e.g., LC-MS based techniques, in vitro assays, sensors);
- Structural characterization of new cyanotoxins using mass spectrometry and related techniques;
- Global occurrence of cyanotoxins, with an emphasis on emerging (e.g., saxitoxins, anatoxin-a, cylindrospermopsin) or new classes of cyanotoxins (such as anabaenopeptins, microginins, etc.) as well as first reports of cyanotoxins on water bodies in less studied regions;
- Tranformation/degradation products of cyanotoxins formed in the environment or during conventional and advanced methods of water treatment (e.g., biodegradation, chemical oxidation).;
- Planktic/benthic cyanotoxin producers, biotic and/or abiotic environmental factors that affect cyanotoxin production;
- Results of monitoring programs demonstrating temporal and spatial distribution of cyanotoxins in freshwater bodies.
Dr. Anastasia Hiskia
Dr. Theodoros Triantis
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Toxins is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- emerging cyanotoxins
- structural characterization
- analysis
- monitoring
- mass spectrometry
- in vitro assays
- transformation products
- planktic and benthic cyanobacteria
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: Influence of Biotope and Biotic Factors on Cyanobacteria Abundance, Genotype and Toxin Production
Authors: Maria Iasmina MOZA and Carmen POSTOLACHE
Abstract:
Environmental genetics-related modern methods are shown as important indicators of various cyanotoxins syntheses, and their knowledge and use are critically analyzed. Microcystins and other cyanotoxins loads and syntheses are related to different drivers, like various chemical elements and compounds (especially nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and their ratio), then to the light, conductivity, temperature, and other climatical and hydrological factors, to which spatial and geographical features (such as the surface of the water bodies) have to be added. The biotic relationships include different specific and supraspecific, uni- and bilateral links between the cyanobacteria, and subsequently their synthesized toxins, and protozoans (or protoctists), chromists, macrophytes, different systematical and ecological groups of zooplankton, and others. The importance of, but also the gaps in, the knowledge and the scarcity of studies involving ectocrines mediated interactions between different groups of algae and plants are highlighted. The paper ends with an interesting classification of lakes' trophicity, illustrated with conceptual diagrams, based on possible scenarios of cyanobacteria behavior.
Title: Abiotic drivers of cyanobacteria blooms in Danube Delta lakes
Authors: Maria Iasmina MOZA, Carmen POSTOLACHE, Ana Maria BENEDEK, Mirela MOLDOVEANU, Alina DUMITRACHE, Francesco POMATI and Piet SPAAK
Abstract: Cyanobacteria mass development, especially in freshwater ecosystems, is a global concern and understanding its underlying mechanisms is an important goal of freshwater ecology. Lakes in Danube Delta, one of the most important complex of freshwater ecosystems in Europe, experienced in the past decades different intensities of cyanobacteria blooms. Conditions that favor or precede this phenomenon are still poorly understood. We conducted a study on the effects of several environmental factors on cyanobacteria abundance and genus composition, covering many lakes and several lake types in the Danube Delta during three seasons (spring, summer and autumn) in 2013 and 2014. We also evaluated the response (positive or negative) of each cyanobacteria genus to these factors and highlighted how nutrient availability influenced them. We found that cyanobacteria genera responded to pH, oxygen saturation, light, ammonium, conductivity, temperature and nitrate. Although these environmental variables are significant (p=0.001), they only explain 14.75% of the variation in abundance of cyanobacteria genera. Furthermore, our study showed that abiotic environmental predictors explained three times better the cyanobacteria community structure compared to the spatial lakes distribution in Danube Delta. These findings suggest the greater importance of environmentally driven assembly mechanism, as opposed to the dispersal assembly mechanism. This study is among the first to investigate cyanobacteria in the Danube Delta’s different lakes in a repeated and standardized design and it showed that mass occurrence of cyanobacteria were less severe than expected based on earlier studies.