Assessing Efficacy of Solid Phase Adsorption Toxin Tracking (SPATT) as an Indicator of the Presence of Cyanotoxins in the New York Finger Lakes

Solid Phase Adsorption Toxin Tracking (SPATT) uses passive samplers designed to concentrate dissolved cyanotoxins over time, thereby providing relative concentrations of cyanotoxins in water bodies across known deployment periods. SPATT can confirm the presence of cyanotoxins in natural systems where the temporal and spatial variability of cyanotoxin concentrations are below the detection threshold of common analytical techniques (e.g., ELISA, LC/MS/MS). In 2019, ninety-one SPATT samplers were deployed at U.S. Geological Survey surface water monitoring platforms located on three of New York’s Finger Lakes: Owasco, Seneca, and Skaneateles. SPATT samplers were deployed at near-surface, mid-depth, and near-bottom depths, with deployment periods ranging between five and twenty-two days. Extracts from samplers were analyzed for four classes of cyanotoxins using ELISA with confirmatory analyses by LC/MS/MS. Discrete water quality samples for cyanotoxins, cyanotoxin synthetase genes, and phytoplankton community identification and enumeration were collected during sampler deployment and retrieval. Multi-parameter sondes deployed at the same depths as the SPATT samplers collected continuous water quality data during each deployment. A summary of preliminary data will be presented alongside complementary data to assess the efficacy of SPATT technologies and their potential utility to resource managers as early detection tools for the presence of cyanotoxins.