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- Western Lake Erie has long been plagued by harmful algal blooms, or HABs, fueled largely by nutrients in agricultural runoff.
- The blooms are composed largely cyanobacteria that sometimes produce liver toxins called microcystins..
- For Lake Erie, one 2009 study concluded that the Maumee and Sandusky rivers were a potential source—that initiate the summer cyanobacteria blooms.
- But other work suggests that river populations do not seed the Erie blooms
- Lake Erie is a drinking water source for 11 million people.
- Western Lake Erie’s annual summer algal blooms are triggered, at least in part, by cyanobacteria cells that survive the winter in lake-bottom sediments, then emerge in the spring to “seed” the next year’s bloom, according to a research team led by University of Michigan scientists
- The study suggests that the initial buildup of blooms can happen at a much higher rate and over a larger spatial extent than would otherwise be possible, due to the broad presence of viable cells in sediments throughout the lake.
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