A chemical cocktail of micropollutants amplified effect of algal toxins in 2022 mass fish mortality event: Study

Tons of dead fish, mussels and snails were seen floating on the Oder River (Germany) in early August 2022. It soon became clear what was causing the environmental disaster in the German-Polish border river: a mixture of excessive salinity, high water temperatures, low water levels and excessive inputs of nutrients and wastewater triggered a bloom of the brackish water algae Prymnesium parvum, whose algal toxin prymnesin has a lethal effect on organisms.