Investigating the Effects of Marine Dinoflagellate Biotoxins on the Environment and Humans

Due to the creation of biotoxins, marine benthic dinoflagellates have caused many concerns in the ecological, economic, and health sectors. The occurrence of marine toxic microalgae blooms has increased and has caused prevalent poisoning in humans. Many dinoflagellates are benthic and epiphytic, in the sense that they usually live on the bottom of coastal areas or coral reefs and macroalgae, and during widespread blooms, because of their proximity to the coast, they can cause widespread health and economic damage. In addition, by entering the food web, dinoflagellates can spread from small organisms (such as zooplankton) to the bodies of larger aquatic organisms (such as fish), thus threatening human health. The current study was conducted to study the potential risks of dinoflagellates causing harmful algal blooms as species with the potential to produce toxins. The findings of this study showed that 80 phytoplankton species have the potential to produce poison, of which 20 benthic species cause the strongest marine biotoxins, which are deadly for aquatic animals and humans. The most dangerous of these biotoxins include gomyautoxin, brevetoxins, saxitoxin, palytoxin, yessotoxins, maitotoxins, ciguatoxins, okadaic acid, and azaspiracid, which cause widespread death of aquatic organisms in case of harmful algal blooms, and cause acute and fatal poisoning if they enter the human body. The findings of the review of previous research clearly show the notability of knowing benthic toxic dinoflagellates and the requirement to include them in monitoring programs for harmful algal blooms on beaches.