News and Feature Stories

First Florida Brown Tide Algal Bloom in Indian River and Mosquito Lagoons Confirmed

Posted on October 1st, 2012 (260 days ago) in Ecosystem Management, Harmful Algal Blooms, Monitoring & Event Response, Seagrasses

An ongoing NCCOS Event Response-funded investigation by Dr. Christopher Gobler at Stony Brook University has genetically identified the algal species Aureoumbra lagunensis as the culprit causing a brown tide bloom in east central Florida coastal lagoons. This confirms a significant expansion of brown tide harmful algal bloom (HAB) events in the United States. Previous Aureoumbra blooms had only been documented in Texas. NCCOS support enabled brown tide expert Dr. Gobler to join a team of Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute and local researchers led by St. Johns River Water Management District who are studying the bloom.

The water management district first reported the unusual bloom in July and officials have since documented many ecosystem impacts including a significant loss of sea grass acreage, hypoxia, fish kills, and deaths of aquacultured hard clams. Dr. Gobler will determine potential toxicity of this brown tide bloom to shellfish and other grazers and examine possible causes to explain why brown tide has appeared in the lagoons, helping NCCOS document this unique HAB event and Florida officials prepare for future re-occurrences.

See related: Algae plaguing the Indian River Lagoon was identified recently by scientists as serious trouble for fish and plants. – OrlandoSentinel.com