fish, and oysters. Blooms have also been credited with releasing the toxin which causes clupeotoxism in humans after ingesting fish which have bioaccumulated the toxin during Trichodesmium blooms. The larger impact of these blooms is likely important to the oceanic ecosystem and is the source of many studies. Blooms are traced and tracked using satellite imaging where the highly reflective gas vacuole makes Trichodesmium blooms easily detectable. It is expected that blooms may increase due to anthropogenic effects in the coming years. Phosphate loading of the environment (through fertilizer pollution, waste disposal, and mariculture) will reduce the growth constraints associated with limited phosphate and likely increase bloom occurrences. Likewise, global warming is projected to increase stratification and cause a shallowing of the mixed layer depth. Both of these factors are associated with Trichodesmium blooms and may also cause an increase in the occurrence of blooms in the future. References Bibliography Kana, T.M. (1993) Rapid oxygen cycling in Trichodesmium thiebautii. Limnology and Oceanography 38: 18–24. Berman-Frank, I., Lundgren, P., Chen, Y.-B., Küpper, H., Kolber, Z., Bergman, B., and Falkowski, P. (2001) Segregation of nitrogen fixation and oxygenic photosynthesis in the marine cyanobacterium Trichodesmium. Science 294: 1534–1537. Küpper, H., Ferimazova, N., Šetlík, I., and Berman-Frank, I. (2004) Traffic lights in Trichodesmium: regulation of photosynthesis for nitrogen fixation studied by chlorophyll fluorescence kinetic microscopy. Plant Physiology 135: 2120–2133. Capone, D.G., Zehr, J., Paerl, H., Bergman, B., and Carpenter, E.J. (1997) Trichodesmium: A globally significant marine cyanobacterium. Science 276: 1221–1229. External links Publications on Trichodesmium from a Marine Biogeochemistry laboratory at the University of Southern California Charles Darwin's description of sailing through a Trichodesmium bloom Trichodesmium in Florida — 2004, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Fish and Wildlife Research Institute Cyanobacteria genera Oscillatoriales