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Red
tide poisoning is an aquatic phenomenon caused by a rapid increase/accumulation in the water column of reddish
colored algal bloom (large concentrations of aquatic microorganisms) comprising
a few species of toxic dinoflagellates. Forecasting the phenomenon has been
critical for coastal communities. This year though, WHOI is introducing a new
tool called Environmental Sample Processors (ESP) to measure bloom
concentration and associative toxins for real-time reporting to land based
researchers.
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Red tide is caused by the incubation
of dormant cysts of alga called Alexandrium fundyense. These toxic cysts
produce can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP). They accumulate in
“seedbeds” found in bottom sediments and near-bottom waters where
they provide the optimal conditions for cells to rapidly divide to form blooms
each spring. Red tides events have
historically greatly affected the local ecology and fishing commerce.
Researchers
typically base the annual red tide forecast on the abundance of cysts in bottom
sediments combined with a computer model that simulates a range of bloom
scenarios based on previous years’ conditions. While this approach
provided useful forecasts for most of the years since 2006, the bloom potential
for both 2010 and 2013 was not realized. In those years warmer, fresher (less
salty), low-nutrient waters in the Gulf of Maine were present, which likely
suppressed the blooms.
“We
are seeing oceanographic conditions that are different from those used to make
our past forecasts, and thus and we are adapting our modeling and observational
efforts to meet this challenge,” said WHOI biologist Don Anderson.
Environmental
Sample Processors (ESP) will measure bloom concentration and toxins at multiple
locations along the Gulf of Maine providing near real-time data to land-based
personnel. Developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the ESPs
are molecular biology labs packed inside canisters the size of kitchen garbage
cans. They automatically collect a sample of water and then rapidly test
for DNA.
The
ESPs were tested off the coast of Portsmouth, NH, during 2011 and 2012, and
then two of the instruments were deployed in 2013. NOAA’s Integrated Ocean
Observing System (IOOS) provided funding to double the number of ESPs deployed
in the Gulf of Maine in 2014, as part of the WHOI-led pilot project funded by
NOAA’s Monitoring and Event Response for Harmful Algal Bloom (MERHAB) program
that is demonstrating how to integrate these sensors into HAB observing and
forecasting systems. Three ESPs were successfully deployed on May 3-4 and are
already transmitting data to shore, indicating that low cell concentrations of
the toxic Alexandrium are present in the nearshore waters of
western Maine. A fourth will be deployed later in the season.
Read
more at Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution.
Red tide sign image via Shutterstock.
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