The potential influence of B vitamins on harmful algal blooms

Session: Harmful Algal Blooms: From Ecosystem Drivers to Ecosystem Impacts (4)

Clifford Kraft, Cornell University, Dept. of Natural Resource, [email protected]
Katie Edwards, Binghamton University / Cornell , [email protected]
Esther Angert, Cornell University, [email protected]

Abstract

Recent insights suggest that the influence of B vitamins on HABs merits attention. First, extensive work by ocean scientists has firmly established the importance of B vitamin availability in determining the composition of marine microbial communities. Although the importance of B vitamins was recognized in algal culture experiments as long ago as the 1930s, ecosystem insights linking B vitamins to ocean primary productivity were largely ignored until genomic and analytical techniques improved in the past decade. The combined ability to characterize synthetic pathways – while measuring B vitamins and precursors present in picomolar concentrations – has revealed that the sequestration and release of essential B vitamins (and precursors) favors algae that can utilize these constituents when available during algal bloom conditions. This might explain why a majority of marine HAB organisms are vitamin B₁ and B₁₂ auxotrophs that take advantage of B vitamins released when their toxins kill other organisms. The diversity of biochemical pathways involved in the acquisition, degradation and synthesis of B vitamins by primary producers reflects a growing line of evidence suggesting that pathogenic organisms kill host or neighboring organisms to satisfy an essential nutritional requirement for B vitamins.