Commercial landings of sardines are known to show strong year‐to‐year fluctuations. A key driver is thought to be environmental variability, to which small forage fish are especially sensitive. We examined the utility of including environmental covariates in forecasts for landings of the Indian oil sardine using a long‐term time series of quarterly catches. Potentially influential variables examined included precipitation, upw...

Historical records of paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs) in shellfish from a coastal embayment in the Pacific Northwest of the United States are used to examine the influence of large‐scale climate variations on aspects of Alexandrium catenella bloom dynamics on interannual and interdecadal timescales. An annual index of shellfish toxicity covaries with the number of days annually that sea surface temperature (SST) exceeds 13°C...

In September 2004 a large, nearly monospecific diatom bloom of Pseudo‐nitzschia cuspidata off the coast of the state of Washington reached cell concentrations of 6.1 × 10 6 cells L −1 and produced maximum particulate domoic acid (pDA), dissolved domoic acid (dDA), and cellular domoic acid concentrations of 43 nmol L −1 1, 4 nmol L −1 , and 63 pg cell −1 , respectively. This bloom co‐dominated the phytoplankton assemblage with...

We investigated the population ecology of toxigenic diatoms within the genus Pseudo‐nitzschia on the Pacific Northwest coast during 2003, 2004, and 2005. Pseudo‐nitzschia spp. were widespread and abundant across the region, and the maximum density reached at our experimental stations was ~7 × 10 6 cells L ‐1 . Pseudo‐nitzschia spp. biomass did not correlate with total phytoplankton biomass, indicating that the growth response...

The relationship among Pseudo‐nitzschia distributions, particulate toxin levels in seawater, and the energetic and highly variable water masses of an upwelling‐dominated region are explored using data collected during summer cruises off the Washington coast in 1997 and 1998. In the early summer of both years, an area of maximum domoic acid (DA) accumulation was located approximately 50 km off the coast within a counterclockwis...

The potential for in situ turbulence to inhibit dinoflagellate population growth has been demonstrated by experimentally exposing dinoflagellate cultures to quantified shear flow. However, despite interest in understanding environmental factors that affect the growth of toxic dinoflagellates, little is known of the effect of shear on the growth of toxin‐producing dinoflagellate species. Cultures of the dinoflagellate, Alexandr...

Sea lion mortalities in central California during May and June 1998 were traced to their ingestion of sardines and anchovies that had accumulated the neurotoxin domoic acid. The detection of toxin in urine, feces, and stomach contents of several sea lions represents the first proven occurrence of domoic acid transfer through the food chain to a marine mammal. The pennate diatoms, Pseudo‐nitzschia multiseries and P. australis ,...