Toxicity of cyanobacterial blooms from Scottish freshwaters

Abstract
Cyanobacterial blooms collected from several Scottish freshwater lochs in 1981/82 were lethal to mice when tested by intraperitoneal bioassay. Toxic blooms were dominated by the cyanobacteria Microcystis aeruginosa, Aphanizomenon flos‐aquae and Anabaena flos‐aquae. Effects of M. aeruginosa bloom poisoning in mice resembled those of a toxic peptide from a clonal isolate with gross damage occurring to the liver. Toxicities of Scottish blooms can approximate to those of cyanobacterial blooms responsible for wild and domestic animal poisonings elsewhere in the world.