Toxic ocean condition tied to climate shifts.

• Position: Domoic Acid

Algae-produced domoic acid--a brain-impacting toxin first identified 30 years ago in the ocean off the Pacific Northwest--is a health risk for humans, birds, sea lions, and wildlife that eat contaminated shellfish. Early warning of its presence, which has led to repeated shutdowns of crab and shellfish harvesting, now may be possible because of new findings that emerged from a collaboration involving the University of Oregon, Eugene, and Oregon State University, Corvallis.

"Domoic acid was an unknown algal toxin until it killed people who ate mussels harvested at Prince Edward Island in 1987," says Michelle Wood, professor of biology and scientist in the UO Institute of Ecology and Evolution. "After that, this toxin was confirmed to be present on the California coast in 1991. Some scientists now think that the crazy birds that inspired Alfred Hitchcock's thriller 'The Birds' were actually experiencing domoic acid poisoning."

In a paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Wood and colleagues report the development of a predictive model based on their discovery of a strong correlation linking toxic levels of domoic acid in shellfish with El Nino events and warm phases of ocean patterns in the Pacific.

"Since the 1991 event," Wood relates, "we have seen more and more accumulations of domoic acid...