Why Can't I Eat Crab? Spread of algal toxin through the Marine Food Web

While Dungeness crab captured headlines, the story is really about the record levels of the neurotoxin domoic acid. In 2015, researchers found unprecedented levels of the algal toxin in a wide range of marine organisms and for the first time in several commercial fish species.

Investigations led by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, help explain the extraordinary duration and intensity of the 2015 domoic acid event, the spread of the toxin through the marine food web, and its persistence in these crabs months after the algal bloom disappeared from coastal waters. Join Kudela at the first Science Sunday of 2016, and learn what's going on in the Monterey Bay––and why you can't eat crab.

Speaker: Raphael Kudela, UC Santa Criz