Although related species were found in the Avacha Bay back in the 1980s, when G. V. Konovalova described them as Gerodinium, and later they were assigned to the genus Karenia mikimotoi, such finds had not been recorded in the Avacha Bay itself, where monitoring has been conducted since 2013.
According to Ekaterina Lepskaya, head of the Fisheries Ecology laboratory at the branch, the concentration of organisms remains low at the moment — from 2,000 to 8,000 cells per liter. However, the memory of the consequences of the "blooming" of waters off the coast of Kamchatka in 2020 is still fresh: then the massive development of dinoflagellates of the genus Karenia led to a large-scale death of bottom animals.
In late September and early October 2020, abundant releases of mussels, sea urchins, cryptochitons and octopuses were recorded on the southeastern coast, and silicates, polychaetes, colonial anemones and bottom—dwelling fish were also recorded on the Okhotsk Sea coast; a year later, it became clear that the trumpeter fishing banks in Okhotsk had been destroyed due to the "bloom". the sea. Then the situation was determined by a complex of natural factors, and so far it is impossible to predict how events will develop this year.
Scientists of the Kamchatka branch of VNIRO continue to closely monitor the situation.
VNIRO Press Service
