Potamoplankton of the Maumee River during 2018 and 2019: The relationship between cyanobacterial toxins and environmental factors.

While algal blooms are common in eutrophic lakes, blooms can also occur in tributaries that load nutrients into the lake. We sampled six sites along a 122-km stretch of the Maumee River May through October 2018 and 2019 at weekly to biweekly intervals to determine if algal blooms occur, in particular toxic cyanobacteria, and to provide insights on potential environmental drivers of blooms. Samples were analyzed for concentrations of potamoplankton (=riverine phytoplankton), chlorophyll , nutrients, cyanobacterial toxins, microcystins and saxitoxins, and cyanotoxin genes ( and ).