Event Abstract

Back to Event

First steps to develop the Surveillance Net in Macaronesian Detection of Ciguatera in species of fishing interest.

Yeray Perez-Gonzalez1*, Alberto Bilbao-Sieyro1, Francisco Cabrera-Suarez2, Francisco Cabrera-Suarez3 and Ninoska Pavon-Salas1
  • 1 Gestión del Medio Rural de Canarias, Spain
  • 2 Dirección General de Pesca, Spain
  • 3 Maternal and Child University Hospital from Gran Canaria, Dirección General de Pesca, Spain

Ciguatera Fish Poisoning (CFP) is the most commonly reported natural marine toxin-related illness globally (Friedman et al., 2008). CFP is caused for substances that are bioaccumulated through trophic net until fish consumed by humans (Lewis & Holmes, 1993). The causative organisms of the ciguatera toxins are some benthic dinoflagellates species of the genus Gambierdiscus, and possibly with Ostreopsis, Coolia and Prorocentrum spp (Hallegraeff et al., 2004). It has described the need to assess the risks of ciguatera poisoning in Europe recently (Bravo et al., 2015). It is based to a large extent on two issues. First, the occurrence of genus micro-algae Gambierdiscus on Macaronesia Region. On another hand, some cases of CFP have been diagnostic on Canary and Madeiran Islands. This way, CFP was included in the Canary Net of Epidemiology Surveillance in 2009 (Orden de 17 de agosto de 2015). The occurrence of these micro-algaes in the Macaronesian region was confirmed the first time in Cape Verde (1956, Rodríguez et al., 2017). Since then, other species of genus Gambierdiscus have been found in the Canary Islands in 2004 (Fraga et al., 2011) and 2015 (Rodríguez et al., 2017), Madeiran Islands in 2008 and in 2012 (Kauffman & Bönh-Beck, 2013) and Marocco Coast in 2012 (Ennaffah & Chaira, 2015). Beside, ciguatoxins were found in starfish collected in Azores Islands in 2013 (Silva et al., 2015). On the other hand, the first call of the Programa Operativo de Cooperación Territorial INTERREG V-A España-Portugal MAC (Madeira-Azores-Canarias) 2014-2020 approved a European project named MIMAR. Its specific aim number two is dedicated “Identify species that would be able to develop harmful algae blooms, and the factors cause them, proposing mechanisms to control, surveillance and coordination between competent administrations of the Macaronesian region". As there is a higher occurrence of CFP cases in the Macaronesian region, MIMAR proposed to create the Surveillance net in Macaronesian Detection of Ciguatera in species fish of fishing interest. This net would be constituted for a system of fish samples collection and of information on the toxins present in the consumed fish by humans usually. Because the net is on fishing interest, it is necessary to have the involvement of fisheries competent public administrations and fishery sector, from participant regions in the net. Into MIMAR, the involved regions are Canary, Cape Verde, Madeira, Mauritanian and Senegal. The regional administrations in the net will be the communication nexus between (i) local fishery sector that will take the samples and (ii) the Dirección General de Pesca of the Canary Government (DGP), one of the local competent authorities in fisheries) which will work as the receptor centre of the information on CFP. Technicians from some Canary institutions, the DGP, the public enterprise named GMR Canarias, S.A.U., and the laboratory of the Servicio de Acuicultura y Biotecnología de Alta Especialización (SABE Service) of the ECOAQUA Institute of the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) have beginning to establish contacts in the rest of regions and obtaining the samples from these places with the purpose to begin the work of the net. To achieve its aims, the surveillance net will employ the ciguatera protocol developed by the DGP. The protocol establishes the application procedure when fish of specific species and sizes are captured (e.g. Seriola spp. of 14 kg or more), in the Canary Islands. The species with the most probability to contain the toxins that cause ciguatera have been included in the protocol, according to the analyses made in this archipelago. The aim of the protocol is to stop the commercialization of these specimens until it is corroborated that they are suitable to consume by humans. For this reason, the protocol is applied in with the collaboration of fishing sector and in the sites where the first sale takes place. The net will look for adapting the Canary protocol of ciguatera to the different characteristics of other regions that take part. To it, one sample of different species of fishery interest ("suspicious" to content toxins) is being developed by region. These samples are being analyzed by the laboratory SABE Service of the ULPGC. Currently, it has been taken 76 samples on Cape Verde, 59 on Madeira, 17 on Mauritania and 25 on Senegal. Finally, the net will develop a similar protocol on CFP in the involved regions and countries. This protocol will be adapted to their local characteristics. So it is necessary the existence of good communication between public administrations with fishing competences, which to achieve the knowledge on the number of fish positive or suspicious in CFP and of the time-spatial evolution of outbreaks, in each region and all geographical coverage of the net.

Acknowledgements

This work was developed within the framework of the MIMAR Project (MAC/4.6d/C066), with the support of the European Union (EU) and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Programa INTERREG V-A España-Portugal MAC 2014-2020 (Madeira-Azores-Canarias).

To Dr Emilio Soler Onís and the members of the Servicio de Acuicultura y Biotecnología de Alta Especialización (SABE Service) of the ECOAQUA Institute of the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

References

Bravo, J., Cabrera-Suárez, F., Ramírez A. S., Acosta, F. (2015). Ciaguatera, an emerging human poisoning in Europe. Journal of Aquaculture & Marine Biology 3 (1): 1-6.

Ennaffah, B. & K. Chaira, 2015. First report of Gambierdiscus in Moroccan Atlantic waters. Harmful Algae News nº 50. 28 pp.

Fraga, S., F. rodríguez, A. Caillaud, J. Diogène, N. Raho & M. Zapata. 2011. Gambierdiscus excentricus sp. nov. (Dinophyceae), a benthic toxic dinoflagellate from the Canary Islands (NE Atlantic Ocean). Harmful Algae, 11. doi:10.1016/j.hal.2011.06.013.

Friedman, M.A.; Fleming, L.E.; Fernandez, M.; Bienfang, P.; Schrank, K.; Dickey, R.; Bottein, M.Y.; Backer, L.; Ayyar, R.; Weisman, R. (2008). Ciguatera fish poisoning: Treatment, prevention and management. Mar. Drugs 6, 456–479.

Hallegraeff GM, Anderson DM, Cembella AD (2004) Manual on Harmful Marine Microalgae. UNESCO, Paris, 793 pp.

Kauffman, M. & M. Böhm-Beck. 2013. Gambierdiscus and related benthic dinoflagellates from Madeira Archipelago (NE Atlantic). Harmful Algae News nº 47. 28 pp.

Lewis, R.J., Holmes, M.J., 1993. Origin and transfer of toxins involved in ciguatera. Comp. Biochem. Physiol. C 106 (3), 615–628.

Rodríguez, F., Fraga, S., Ramilo, I., Rial, P., Figueroa, R.I., Riobó, P., Bravo, I. (2017). “‘Canary Islands (NE Atlantic) as a biodiversity “hotspot” of Gambierdiscus: Implications for future trends of ciguatera in the area,’” Harmful Algae, vol. 67, pp. 131–143, 2017.

Silva, M., I. Rodríguez, A. Barreiro, M. Kaufmann, A.I. Neto, M. Hassouani, B. Sabour, A. Alfonso, L.M. Botana & V. Vasconcelos. 2015. First Report of Ciguatoxins in Two Starfish Species: Ophidiaster ophidianus and Marthasterias glacialis. Toxins 7: 3740-3757.

Keywords: Ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP), the surveillance net in Macaronesian detection of ciguatera, fish species consumed by humans, Macaronesian regions, species of fishing interest

Conference: IMMR'18 | International Meeting on Marine Research 2018, Peniche, Portugal, 5 Jul - 6 Jul, 2018.

Presentation Type: Poster Presentation

Topic: Fisheries and Management

Citation: Perez-Gonzalez Y, Bilbao-Sieyro A, Cabrera-Suarez F, Cabrera-Suarez F and Pavon-Salas N (2019). First steps to develop the Surveillance Net in Macaronesian Detection of Ciguatera in species of fishing interest.. Front. Mar. Sci. Conference Abstract: IMMR'18 | International Meeting on Marine Research 2018. doi: 10.3389/conf.FMARS.2018.06.00148

Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.

The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.

Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.

For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.

Received: 04 May 2018; Published Online: 07 Jan 2019.

* Correspondence: Dr. Yeray Perez-Gonzalez, Gestión del Medio Rural de Canarias, Agüimes, Spain, yeraypg@gmrcanarias.com