SHORT RESEARCH NOTE Does the potentially toxic cyanobacterium Microcystis exist in the soda lakes of East Africa? Kiplagat Kotut • Lothar Krienitz Received: 19 October 2010 / Revised: 22 December 2010 / Accepted: 24 December 2010 / Published online: 8 February 2011 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 Abstract Presently, the food chains of the famous saline alkaline flamingo-lakes of East Africa are the focus of intense scientific discussion as the lakes host toxic cyanobacteria, which when consumed by Lesser Flamingos, weaken the birds and therefore make them susceptible to attacks by infective diseases. The distribution, genetic and toxicological aspects of Microcystis in Kenya has been studied extensively. Although there are reports on the occurrence of Microcystis in Kenya’s hypersaline alkaline lakes, they have not been confirmed. Our investigations carried out over a 10-year period in about 50 inland waters showed that Microcystis occurs exclusively in freshwaters, but never in the hypersaline alkaline lakes. Microscopic examinations of the phytoplank- ton of these lakes revealed the presence of Anabaen- opsis abijatae (Nostococales) whose lumpy structure makes it roughly similar to Microcystis when viewed under an inverted microscope. We conclude that the possible occurrence of Microcystis in hypersaline alkaline lakes is doubtful and, as such, confirmatory studies including microphotographic documentation of findings should be carried out. Keywords Anabaenopsis Á East Africa Á Lesser Flamingo Á Microcystis Á Soda lakes Á Toxic cyanobacteria Members of the bloom- and scum-forming cyano- bacterial genus Microcystis are worldwide found in inland waters where they are the main toxin-produc- ers (Codd et al., 2005). The toxins produced by Microcystis are hepatotoxic microcystins. These are cyclic heptapeptides in more than 60 structural variants with the potential to cause considerable ecotoxicological effects (Wiegand & Pflugmacher, 2005). The species concept of Microcystis is still under discussion and to date, no correlation between morphology, phylogeny, and geography has been established (Otsuka et al., 1999; Wilson et al., 2005). Microcystis aeruginosa (Ku ¨tzing) Ku ¨tzing, an extre- mely polymorphic species (Koma ´rek & Anagnostidis, 1998), is the most common and best studied taxon of the genus. In East Africa, Microcystis is widely distributed in fresh and subsaline inland waters (Wood & Talling, 1988; Kebede, 2002; Okello et al., 2010b). M. aeruginosa is genetically (Haande et al., 2007) and toxicologically well studied in the region (Okello et al., 2010a, b). Another common morphospecies of Microcystis in African lakes is Handling editor: Luigi Naselli-Flores K. Kotut Plant and Microbial Sciences Department, Kenyatta University Nairobi, P.O. Box 43844, Nairobi GPO 00100, Kenya L. Krienitz (&) Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, 16775 Stechlin, Germany e-mail: krie@igb-berlin.de 123 Hydrobiologia (2011) 664:219–225 DOI 10.1007/s10750-010-0594-z