Toxic phytoplankton in San Francisco Bay

The Regional Monitoring Program (RMP) was conceived and designed to document the changing distribution and effects of trace substances in San Francisco Bay, with focus on toxic contaminants that have become enriched by human inputs. However, coastal ecosystems like San Francisco Bay also have potential sources of naturally-produced toxic substances that can disrupt food webs and, under extreme circumstances, become threats to public health. The most prevalent source of natural toxins is from blooms of algal species that can synthesize metabolites that are toxic to invertebrates or vertebrates. Although San Francisco Bay is nutrient-rich, it has so far apparently been immune from the epidemic of harmful algal blooms in the world’s nutrient-enriched coastal waters. This absence of acute harmful blooms does not imply that San Francisco Bay has unique features that preclude toxic blooms. No sampling program has been implemented to document the occurrence of toxin-producing algae in San Francisco Bay, so it is difficult to judge the likelihood of such events in the future. This issue is directly relevant to the goals of RMP because harmful species of phytoplankton have the potential to disrupt ecosystem processes that support animal populations, cause severe illness or death in humans, and confound the outcomes of toxicity bioassays such as those included in the RMP. Our purpose here is to utilize existing data on the phytoplankton community of San Francisco Bay to provide a provisional statement about the occurrence, distribution, and potential threats of harmful algae in this Estuary.