Organism responsible for paralytic shellfish poisoning may affect fisheries

The toxic dinoflagellate, Alexandrium fundyense, is a photosynthetic plankton--a microscopic organism floating in the ocean, unable to swim against a current. New research by scientists at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa (UHM) School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) suggests that ingestion of this dinoflagellate changes the energy balance and reproductive potential of a particular copepod--a small crustacean--in the North Atlantic, which is key food source for young fishes, including many commercially important species.

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