Thirst For Blood Sparks Toxic Algal Blooms

[Staff]

Thirst For Blood Sparks Toxic Algal Blooms

ScienceDaily (June 30, 2009) — The blooming of toxic algae that occurs during the summer conceal a fight for life and death. Scientists at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, propose in an article published in the journal PNAS that algal blooms are created when aggressive algae kill and injure their competitors in order to absorb the nutrients they contain.

Thirst For Blood Sparks Toxic Algal Blooms
excerpts from above:

"The behaviour of the algae can be compared to that of blood-sucking insects", says Per Jonsson of the Department of Marine Ecology.

Marine ecologist Per Jonsson and his colleagues suggest that the inhibition of competitors that previous research had found is only a side-effect of a considerably more aggressive behaviour: toxic algae injure or kill competing algae in order to gain access to the nutrients in their cells.