Friday 2/15

Karenia Brevis is a toxic dinoflagellate which has a significant role in producing harmful algae blooms or "red tides" like in places such as the Gulf of Mexico and the coast of Florida.  Karenia Brevis is a microscopic, single celled organism that each cell has two flagella that allow it to move through water in a spinning motion. It produces potent neurotoxins collectively called brevetoxins, which cause neurological problems in other organisms, responsible for many die-off marine animals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karenia_brevis (only website containing it's characteristics that i could find.)


Neurotoxic Shellfish Poisoning is a condition caused by ingestion of brevetoxin, a neurotoxin which is given off by certain dinoflagellates.  Most of the brevetoxin is generated by Kerenia Brevis.  The Neurotoxic Shellfish Poisoning symptoms found in humans usually appear within one to three hours.  The person may feel tingling, numbingness and intestinal distress as the body processes the toxin.  Death would be normally rare.
  http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-neurotoxic-shellfish-poisoning.htm  However, when marine animals are exposed to this toxin there are more sufficient deaths or it can cause the creature to be confused or mentally ill. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesic_shellfish_poisoning#Possible_animal_effects This effects the Gulf coast economy by affecting what sea food is produced and eaten that could be poisonous.  Therefore it would slow the economy tremendously if this were to occur often.