Potential distribution of the dinoflagellate Peridinium quadridentatum and its blooms in continental shelves globally: an environmental and geographic approach

This work was designed to analyze the current ecological niche of Peridinium quadridentatum var. quadridentatum and its harmful algal blooms (HABs) using species distribution models. A maximum entropy model was fitted to samples of occurrence records gathered from the scientific literature and using environmental data for the continental shelves of the world obtained from BIO-ORACLE. The geographic models plotted were sea surface temperature vs. salinity, nitrate vs. phosphate concentration, and radiation vs. chlorophyll-a concentration, to describe the environmental space occupied by P. quadridentatum. Our results show that P. quadridentatum is a dinoflagellate of wide thermohaline tolerance linked to sites near coastal areas, which might be related to some life-cycle stages. Both presence (pENM) and blooms (bENM) ecological niche models show that this species prospers near tropical and temperate latitudes. The pENM predicts a broader distribution range than the bENM, suggesting that some sites with favorable conditions for the occurrence of this species are not suitable for its proliferation and formation of HABs. The bENM predicts potential HABs limited in eutrophic areas, but not in hyper-eutrophic areas. As validation of the models, some occurrence records of this species (i.e., West Africa, Peru, and Fiji) were not included in the initial analyses. As a result, the pENM predicts its occurrence in those sites, so the models for current potential distribution and blooms incidences are credible.