Sea-Air Transfer of Phycotoxins Is Driven by the Chemical Diversity of the Particulate Fraction in the Surface Microlayer.

Blooms of cf. pose an emerging health threat, causing respiratory disorders in various coastal regions. This dinoflagellate produce potent phycotoxins named ovatoxins that can be transferred from the seawater to the atmosphere.

Harmful Ostreopsis cf. ovata blooms could extend in time span with climate change in the Western Mediterranean Sea.

Fast environmental changes and high coastal human pressures and impacts threaten the Mediterranean Sea. Over the last decade, recurrent blooms of the harmful dinoflagellate Ostreopsis cf. ovata have been recorded in many Mediterranean beaches.

Basin scale variability of Ostreopsis spp. blooms provides evidence of effectiveness of an integrated sampling approach.

Ostreopsis spp. blooms have been occurring in the last two decades in the Mediterranean Sea in association with a variety of biotic and abiotic substrata (macroalgae, seagrasses, benthic invertebrates, sand, pebbles and rocks). Cells proliferate attached to the surfaces through mucilaginous trichocysts, which lump together microalgal cells, and can also be found in the plankton and on floating aggregates: such tychoplanktonic behavior makes the quantitative assessment of blooms more difficult than planktonic or benthic ones.