UGA researchers identify, name toxic cyanobacteria

Source: uga.edu

Athens, Ga. - University of Georgia researchers have formally identified and named toxic cyanobacteria that have been killing American bald eagles across the Southeast.

After years of studying the cyanobacteria coating the leaves of water plants in lakes, researchers in UGA's Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources have determined that it is a previously undiscovered species in a new genus. In a paper published recently in the journal Phytotaxa, they named it Aetokthonos hydrillicola and lay out evidence that it is responsible for the eagle deaths.

Warnell researchers spotted an eagle afflicted with avian vacuolar myelinopathy near Lake Thurmond in Georgia just days before finding it dead. (Credit: Rebecca Haynie)

"This new species has a growth form and gene sequence so unusual that it does not fit into any of the existing families," said Susan Wilde, the Warnell professor who has been leading the research. "The naming convention for cyanobacteria is to use Greek for the genus—Aetokthonos translates to ‘eagle-killer.' The species name is always Latin, and hydrillicola means ‘lives on hydrilla.'"

Beginning in the mid-1990s, American bald eagles started to die off in noticeable numbers from a neurological disease called avian vacuolar myelinopathy. AVM was first found in Arkansas in 1994, but over the past two decades, 160 eagles are known to have died across the Southeast from the disease, including 80 from one Georgia impoundment on the Savannah River, the J. Strom Thurmond Reservoir.

read the full article here!

The study is online here