Concentrations of cyanotoxins in fresh water and fish

This dataset accompanies the publication Flores, N.M., T.R. Miller,
and J.D. Stockwell. Accepted. A global analysis of the relationship
between cyanotoxins in water and fish. Frontiers in Marine Science.
doi: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00030 Cyanobacteria, the primary bloom-forming organisms in fresh water,
elicit a spectrum of problems in lentic systems. The most immediate
concern for people and animals are cyanobacterial toxins, which have
been detected at variable concentrations in water and fish around the
world. Cyanotoxins can transfer through food webs, potentially
increasing the risk of exposure to people who eat fish from affected
waters, yet little is known about how cyanotoxins fluctuate in wild
fish tissues. We collated existing studies on cyanotoxins in fish and
fresh water from lakes around the world into a global dataset to test
the hypothesis that cyanotoxin concentrations in fish increase with
water toxin concentrations. We limited our quantitative analysis to
microcystins because data on other cyanotoxins in fish were sparse,
but we provided a qualitative summary of other cyanotoxins reported in
wild, freshwater fish tissues. We found a positive relationship
between intracellular microcystin in water samples and microcystin in
fish tissues that had been analyzed by assay methods (enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay and protein phosphatase inhibition assay). We
expected microcystin to be found in increasingly higher concentrations
from carnivorous to omnivorous to planktivorous fishes. We found,
however, that omnivores generally had the highest tissue microcystin
concentrations. Additionally, we found contrasting results for the
level of microcystin in different tissue types depending on the toxin
analysis method. Because microcystin and other cyanotoxins have the
potential to impact public health, our results underline the current
need for comprehensive and uniform detection methods for the analysis
of cyanotoxins in complex matrices.