Long term study (2012−2021) on Okadaic acid and Yessotoxins in Northwestern Adriatic Sea mussels (Italy). The role of inland rainfall in the dynamics of contamination events

The Northwestern Adriatic Sea is highly exploited for mussel farming although it is periodically affected by Harmful Algal Bloom. In the last 30 years Okadaic acid (OA) and Yessotoxins (YTXs) predominated the mussels' toxin profile with serious threat to public health and damage to the shellfish industry. The Official Control Authorities address this issue by monitoring Marine Biotoxins in shellfish and toxic phytoplankton in seawater with good results in terms of safeguarding public health but with poor forecasting power. This work reports ten years (2012-2021) monitoring of OA and YTXs in mussels and of the toxic phytoplankton along the Marche Region coasts (Italy), aiming to study their spatio-temporal trend and the potential influence of the inland rainfall regime, recorded during the same period. A sudden shift from YTXs to OA predominance in mussel's toxin profile during 2015 was reported with an increased detrimental effect on shellfish industry. Since then, OA toxic events occurred in 2017, 2020 and 2021 interspersed with years (2016, 2018, 2019) in which the contamination in mussels was almost absent. During the whole study period, both OA and YTXs accumulation showed marked seasonal and geographical patterns with the highest levels reported in autumn-early winter and in the Northern part of the region. A weak but promising, either direct or inverse, correlation between rainfall abundance and YTXs/ OA mussel accumulation, was highlighted in this study. Further studies on the correlation between toxin accumulation and rainfall events are certainly needed to strengthen the hypothesis.