Profile of a bloom of the cyanobacterium Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii (Woloszynska) Seenaya and Subba Raju in the Fitzroy River in tropical central Queensland

The physical, chemical and biotic conditions before and during a bloom of predominantly coiled heterocystous C. raciborskii are described. Initial increases in the population of this species were associated with windy days and the first downward movement of the thermocline into an anoxic hypolimnion after an extended period of stable stratification and no flow. Exponential growth and bloom formation coincided with the arrival and retention of first wet-season inflows into the river impoundment. Cyanobacteria and rotifers dominated the planktonic assemblage and chytrids (cyanobacterial pathogens) were present when the cell density of cyanobacteria peaked. Grazing of the coiled forms that dominated during the bloom was not recorded, but the rotifer Brachionus angularis has been observed ingesting entire straight trichomes of C. raciborskii.