Phosphorus cycle years to progress. Cultural or anthropogenic eutrophication, however, is water pollution caused by excessive plant nutrients; this results in excessive growth in the algal population; when this algae dies its putrefaction depletes the water of oxygen. Such eutrophication may also give rise to toxic algal bloom. Both these effects cause animal and plant death rates to increase as the plants take in poisonous water while the animals drink the poisoned water. Surface and subsurface runoff and erosion from high-phosphorus soils may be major contributing factors to this fresh water eutrophication. The processes controlling soil Phosphorus release to surface runoff and
Eutrophication their way into humans is the case of shellfish poisoning. Biotoxins created during algal blooms are taken up by shellfish (mussels, oysters), leading to these human foods acquiring the toxicity and poisoning humans. Examples include paralytic, neurotoxic, and diarrhoetic shellfish poisoning. Other marine animals can be vectors for such toxins, as in the case of ciguatera, where it is typically a predator fish that accumulates the toxin and then poisons humans. In order to gauge how to best prevent eutrophication from occurring, specific sources that contribute to nutrient loading must be identified. There are two common sources of nutrients and