But she and her assistants make that amazing discovery that of a new and extremely dangerous dinoflagellates organism, Pfiesteria piscicida. .
Dr. Burkholder discovers that excessive pollution, mainly nitrogen and phosphorous, in the rivers and coastal waters of the Southeastern United States causes this deadly microorganism to breed like crazy. She finds that rivers along the eastern coast of the United States from Delaware to South Carolina have had reports of Pfiesteria piscicida like infestation that have caused large freshwater fish kills killing the fish by damaging the epidermal, neural, immune, and reproductive systems. And makes head way in diagnosis of Pfiesteria-human illness syndrome (PHIS).
Large blooms of Pfiesteria emit powerful toxins that weaken and entrap fish that swim into the area. The toxins eventually cause the fish to develop large bleeding sores through which the tiny dinoflagellates attack, feasting on blood and flesh. Often the damages caused by Pfiesteria blooms are astounding. During a 1991 fish kill that was blamed on Pfiesteria on North Carolina's Neuse River, nearly one billion fish died and bulldozers had to be brought in to clear the remains from the river.
Dinoflagellates, as members of the protist kingdom, dinoflagellates are technically neither plants nor animals, though in some ways they are both. Some dinoflagellates make their food through photosynthesis like plants, while some eat other organisms for nutrition. Still others are capable of doing both. Though some dinoflagellates had been known to emit powerful toxins, these were generally the plant-like species, and the toxins were released as a way of warding off predators or killing microscopic competitors. Sometimes, these toxins could find their way into seafood, making it unfit to eat, but dinoflagellates had never been know to use toxins to attack and kill large prey like fish or humans.
