July 23, 2012 A University of Connecticut researcher and his
team have discovered that a species of tiny aquatic organism
prominent in harmful algal blooms sometimes called "red tide" is
even deadlier than first thought, with potential consequences
for entire marine food chains. Professor Hans Dam and his
research group in the school's Department of Marine Sciences
have discovered that the plankton species Alexandrium tamarense
contains not one but two different types of toxins, one that's
deadly to large organisms and one that's deadly to small
predators. "If it's killing multicellular animals with one toxin
and small protists with another, it could be the killer of the
ocean world," he says. Dam speculates that this ability to harm
both large and small oceanic predators could lead to disruptions
in the marine food web during large Alexandrium blooms, like the
red tide that occurred along the Northeast coast in 2005,
severely affecting the Cape Cod area. "These small predators
that are being affected by the