Episode 15: Long-Term Monitoring of Harmful Algal Blooms in the IRL

Have you ever kayaked at night and seen the beautiful blue light show put on by bioluminescent algae in the lagoon?

Did you know that same algae and many others can be harmful to the plants, animals and people that call the lagoon home?

If you have questions, we have answers — all about algae. 

Today, on One Lagoon – One Voice.

Hi, I am Duane De Freese, executive director of the IRL Council and the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program. Welcome to our One Lagoon, One Voice Podcast.

Each week, myself or one of my staff members will host leaders in the community, scientists along the lagoon, people who know a lot about the system to talk about some of the problems.

And most importantly, some of the solutions to solve the Indian River Lagoon’s health and make sure it’s great for future generations. So let’s get the show started and let’s talk a little lagoon.

Welcome, everybody. Today we’re going to be talking about algae in the Indian River Lagoon. And today I’m talking with two leading algal researchers who are going to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of algae and algae blooms in the lagoon, and how long-term monitoring is helping us understand how algae respond to conditions in the lagoon.

So today I’m going to welcome Ed Phlips from University of Florida and Malcolm McFarland from Florida Atlantic University at Harbor Branch. Welcome.

Sure. So I work with the University of Florida, I’m a professor there, and with the Fishes and Aquatic Sciences program within IFAS. And I’ve been with IFAS since 1983. I got an opportunity to study Lake Okeechobee, which was my first delving into freshwater systems, and worked on that for five years.

Since then we’ve been all over the state in both marine and freshwater environments and occasionally they let us leave the state. I did a little work in the Amazon basin looking at the Oxbow Lakes, and did a little work on coral reef algae in Grand Cayman and Eutrophic Lakes in Greece. Occasionally they let us leave and go someplace else.

One of our longest projects that we’ve had over that period of time is in the Indian River Lagoon. And that [has] been a great opportunity to look at harmful algal blooms and the dynamics of that process since 1997. So this is our 26th year in this study — and it’s been a very exciting study. And that’s kind of where I am right now. And I’ll let Malcolm give you his explanation of what he’s doing.

Sure. Thanks, Ed. Yeah. Well I guess I’m more of a recent transplant to the area. I came down to Florida and Harbor Branch in 2015. Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute is part of Florida Atlantic University. I am a research professor there, and the institute’s focus is really on oceanography, so global scale ocean processes. And my focus in that area has been phytoplankton — microscopic algae that inhabit the world’s oceans. But they’re common and important in freshwater and marine environments.

So since I’ve come down here, I’ve been focusing a lot on the Indian River Lagoon and the coastal processes that happen right here along the east coast of Florida. Done a little work on the west coast of Florida as well — over where the red tide is common. And of course, like Ed, have been pulled into the freshwater environments. Lake Okeechobee — done some work there myself as well. Florida’s a really incredible place for phytoplankton and algae. It’s [a] very productive environment [and] ecosystem. So it’s been really interesting working here.

So, Malcolm, that brought up a great point in your introduction there regarding the role of microplankton — that it plays a really important part. And so can you just touch briefly on what is microalgae or phytoplankton and what [is] its role in the system?

Yeah, sure. So phytoplankton and algae are basically microscopic plants, and they are really critical in both marine and freshwater environments. They are the primary producers in those environments.

So just like plants, they get their energy from the sun by photosynthesis. And they form basically the base of the whole food web in these systems. They are fed upon by small animals — zooplankton. And those zooplankton are fed upon by small fish and larger fish and so on up the food chain.

So a lot of what we hear about microscopic algae is in terms of harmful algal blooms. But it’s important to remember that these really are critical components of aquatic ecosystems. They’re really important. They’re supposed to be there, they’re part of healthy ecosystems, but in some cases they can become a problem.

Yeah. Thanks, Malcolm. Ed, what do they need to grow? Malcolm kind of touched on that they need light, but [are] there other aspects to that to help them grow?

Yeah, I mean, it’s actually fairly simple, and then of course, you get into details [that] can be very complex. But basically they need light — so they have to have sufficient light to be able to reproduce. Some of them are mixotrophs, in other words, they can do both. They can photosynthesize and they can also consume particulate carbon and grow that way. And that’s called mixotrophy.

And some of them are heterotrophic, in other words, some don’t actually have chlorophyll and actually live heterotrophic — but they are called algae. Dinoflagellates are the major group that does that. Of course, the other thing that [they] need is nutrients. So nutrients are the basis for growth in terms of the structure of the organism. So you need carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus typically, and micronutrients. Typically, nitrogen and phosphorus are the two elements that are most commonly limiting. So those are kind of the major ingredients.

Of course, from the big picture, one of the things that algae do for us is they produce oxygen. And phytoplankton produce 50% of the oxygen produced in the world each year. So without the algae, we would be in trouble. So from that perspective, they’re very important too.

That’s a great point. And you know, before we touch [on] harmful algal blooms, I kind of want to talk about what a healthy assemblage looks like. I know Ed, you focus on the northern lagoon and Malcolm, you focus on the southern lagoon. I’ll start with Ed. Can you talk about what that healthy assemblage of microalgae should look like in the northern lagoon?

Yeah. Well, one of the things that we have to keep in mind is what’s healthy for one system, one environment, may not be healthy for another.

So we would expect the condition to be fairly productive, fairly high in chlorophyll compared to some other systems. But presumably, what we’d be trying to avoid is harmful algal biomass conditions, which cause conditions like hypoxia or excessive toxin accumulation in the environment.

So that’s really what we’re trying to avoid, not necessarily getting it back into conditions where it’s crystal clear water and it’s very low production

Yeah, I think you’re hitting the nail on the head there. It’s a very Goldilocks zone, you know, to get it just right of that healthy [point] — too much, you go over. Too little, not enough. So, [I] really appreciate that. Malcolm, how about the southern lagoon?

I guess I would have to echo what Ed said. The southern lagoon is still part of the lagoon, so it’s still sort of similar to the northern parts — but it’s much more quickly flushed, I would say. There are more inlets that allow for exchange with ocean water. So you get different algae — microscopic algae — coming in or going out to the coastal ocean.

I guess we do see fewer algae overall in the waters down here because of that. Most of the coastal ocean here is pretty low in algal biomass, [which is] typical [for] tropical waters. If you think of tropical waters, you might think of Caribbean reefs with crystal clear water. It’s not quite that clear in the coastal ocean here, but it’s more on the oligotrophic side. So we get a lot of flushing and we see different characteristics in the southern half of the lagoon as a result of that — usually lower algal biomasses.

But still we see these periodic blooms, where at times for short durations, you can get very high cell concentrations, and that can still be a problem. And of course we can also get some algae that produce toxins. And even if they’re not at extremely high cell concentrations, they can still be a problem because of the toxins that they produce.

Thanks, Malcolm. Can you, for our listeners, explain eutrophic versus oligotrophic and what those terms are? Because some of our listeners may not understand that.

Yeah, sure. These terms, eutrophic or oligotrophic, are basically referring to the amount of nutrient resources that are available in the system or in the water to fuel algal growth. So a eutrophic system would characteristically have very high nutrient concentrations — very high concentrations of fertilizers like nitrogen and phosphorus. Whereas an oligotrophic system would have very low concentrations of those compounds and therefore could not support as much algal growth.

Thank you. I’m thinking a little bit about what you just said and, Ed, about the two different types of trophic levels for the Northern versus the Southern. And it sounds like the Northern is much more eutrophic than oligotrophic. And so because of that, are we seeing different types of species between the two sections? So Ed, how about you? Is the Northern section showing a lot different types of algae than say, the Southern lagoon?

Yeah, to some degree that’s true. We see more pronounced blooms of Pyrodinium — the dinoflagellate Pyrodinium — in the Northern than in the Southern end.

If you look at the big picture, we’ll actually see a lot of the same things. But the bigger contrast is in the amount we see in the biomass levels we’re achieving because the actual two systems are connected. And so they’re really getting [the] same kind of inoculum. If the environmental conditions are different enough, then we may have different dominant species in the different systems. But in terms of the range of organisms we’re seeing, [they] are actually quite similar. They see Pyrodinium down there, [but] they may not see them in nearly as high [of] concentrations as we do up in the Northern system.

And the other thing that people need to understand about oligotrophic and eutrophic is that eutrophic does not necessarily mean bad. And I think that eutrophic has kind of become a boogie word in the sense that, “Oh, you say eutrophic, that’s a bad thing.” But there are natural ecosystems which have not been impacted by human development that are eutrophic because the inputs to the system get a lot of nutrients.

So they are a highly productive system because eutrophic means productive, and the definition of eutrophic is actually highly productive. And so systems can be highly productive — even in their natural state, [they are] unaffected by human behavior. And what we want to avoid is situations where human effects are actually causing an excessive [of] eutrophication.

That’s a fantastic explanation and I really appreciate that because I think you’re right that the [eutrophic] is a boogie word. But it’s the process from going from one to the other due to human impact that is really the driver of those negative impacts. And this is a perfect segue into harmful algal bloom.

So now we know a little bit about the system, the difference between [them], the Northern and Southern, and it’s really that residence time and [what is] causing them. I guess for our listeners, Ed, you can describe this first. What is the definition of a harmful algal bloom? And do we know what the factors are that lead to that initiation? You kind of touched a little bit on it with the residence time.

Yeah.

But can you go a little bit further into it?

What’s a bloom? Well actually a bloom is just a high level of algae or algae biomass in the system that’s somewhat over the normal average condition. That would be a bloom. The harmful part is a little bit different. And that is [if] you reach a biomass where you actually have a negative effect on the ecosystem, or a negative effect on human health or animal health. So that’s really the definition of harm.

So harm can be many things. Harm can be low oxygen conditions or hypoxia or anoxia, which can cause massive fish kills. It can be high toxin levels, which can also cause fish kills or it can cause human health concerns. Or it can cause a low light transmission through the water column, in which case the benthic plants that we want in the system like seagrasses may be jeopardized by low light transmission through the water column.

It can restructure a system in terms of food web structure. If you have a bloom of something like a brown tide species, you can restructure the ecosystem so that less energy is getting towards the higher levels of the trophic system like fish and causing a problem that way. So there’s multiple things involved in the term harm. So harmful algal blooms are a condition where excess biomass can cause harm.

Right. And so what’s the typical measure for that? I know that it depends on the system, but it’s typically cell count, right? Is that [a] measure of biomass?

In terms of harm? Yes. Usually we say at certain cellular concentrations, sufficient toxin might be associated with that to actually be a problem.

So for example, in the red tide where you have Karenia, which is producing a neurotoxin [that] can cause human health symptoms like respiratory distress or eye irritation. And so obviously the level of cells in the water column that would be problematic from that point of view might be quite a bit less than if you’re dealing with Pyrodinium in the Indian River Lagoon.

[That is] where the actual biomass of Pyrodinium can get fairly high because you don’t have that aerosolization of the toxins into the air, which causes human health issues. And so the levels might be higher to actually cause a harmful algae bloom involving Pyrodinium versus Karenia.

Gotcha. So, Malcolm, what kind of factors lead to these initiations of making these blooms get out of control? Say they’re in the system, they’re at a good level, and then all of a sudden they go out of control. Do we know what causes that process?

Well, in some senses, yes, we know. And in other senses, no, it’s a very complicated phenomenon.

We know basically that algae require nutrients, nitrogen and phosphorus and light and time to grow. But the details of how a bloom forms and what species end up blooming is really complicated. And just as all natural ecosystems are very complicated, there are a lot of relationships between different species, and different species have different responses to different environmental conditions.

And environmental conditions are always changing — often rapidly. Understanding how all those different dynamic parts of the puzzle come together to produce a bloom is still something that we’re very much trying to get a handle on. And it’s a very complicated and challenging problem.

Right. Let’s talk a little bit about the types of blooms that we’ve seen, say, over the past decade in the lagoon that have been the big ones that everybody kind of recognizes from the years past. So we had a super bloom in 2011. Can you guys describe what was in that assemblage and what kind of impacts that bloom had?

Yeah, I guess I was around in those days.

I’ll leave it to you, Ed.

Because I’m older. So it was [an] interesting transition period for the system and I’ll try to make this a shorter discussion because we could go on for a long time about this. But basically before 2011, we had Pyrodinium blooms. Some of them were fairly intense, and other blooms of other species as well — like various other dinoflagellates.

Occasionally we’d get diatom blooms and so forth. In the years before 2011, there were two very harsh winters. Temperatures in the system got down to three degrees Celsius, four degrees Celsius. Typically, the lagoon winter temperatures usually hover around 15 to 20 degrees Celsius — so that’s really cold. And there [were] mass mortalities of plants, animals, all different organisms during that really hard cold snap. And I think it stressed out many parts of the system, including the seagrass communities and of course the algal communities. We had mass mortalities of the algal community in terms of seagrass communities, which I think caused a regime shift in the distribution of nutrients in the system. And that pulse of nutrients caused this very large and very protracted bloom in 2011.

And as a consequence, the bloom lasted from about March through October which is very long and that covers the entire optimal growth season for seagrasses and other benthic organisms or plants. And so that was what we call the super bloom [in 2011]. And then in [the] subsequent year, we had a bloom that was even more intense involving the brown tide species Aureoumbra lagunensis. That species reached even higher levels of biomass. Blooms were reaching four or five times that biomass level.

So you can see that’s a big shift. Obviously what happened was — whatever was going into the system nutrient-wise and the transition happening that year — you were getting that much more nutrients going towards the phytoplankton and not somewhere else. So that’s the transition in 2011. And then because we had repeated blooms year after year, it prevented the seagrasses from coming back.

Yeah. So we’ve seen these blooms, you know, 2011, 2015, ’16, another one [in] 2018 and then 2020, which was, I think, the biggest one of all. So they’ve been compounding. But there’s been times where they haven’t been blooming.

So do we know what causes them to terminate? Why are they senesce after a little bit and then they all of a sudden come back? Is there a hypothesis on that?

I think it’s important to realize that there’s a lot we still don’t understand about these systems and any given bloom. It’s really hard to determine what may be the drivers of that bloom and what were the factors that led to its termination because these systems are really complicated and really diverse.

The communities of algae are interacting with the bacteria that are out there and there’s a whole set of viruses. And there’s all sorts of interactions between these different groups or organisms that are really hard to pin down at any given point in time.

It’s [a] really fascinating thing to study and think about, but it’s really challenging to really pinpoint, “Okay, this is why this particular bloom happened,” or, “This is why this particular bloom stopped when it did.”

Gotcha. So we’re talking a little bit about this whole aspect of looking at the bloom [from] all the different parameters. How do we look at monitoring of these HABs and alga? And so talk a little bit, Malcolm, first, how do we look at these algae and monitor them and get this long term dataset that’s really important?

This is something I’ve been doing for a long time, so has Ed, too. The traditional method is to go out and take a water sample, bring it back to the laboratory and look at it under a microscope. You can identify the cells that you see in there and count how many there are in a given volume of water. And that way, we can get cell concentrations of different species.

That’s a tedious process but it’s really sort of the gold standard for keeping track of and monitoring what’s happening with the algal communities in a given place at a given time. A lot of things that I’ve been involved in is trying to figure out new ways that we can monitor these algal communities.

We have various devices that we use that can measure the water color and the amount of light that is scattered in the water. We use those to infer how much algae there is in the water and, to some extent, what kinds of algae are there. And the cool thing about using the optical properties of the water is that you can do it in situ. You can take a device that measures the color of the water and stick it in the water in some particular place or you can do it from satellites. You can use them to infer how much algae is in the water by the color of the water that the satellite sees.

Other things we’re doing is we’re developing small submersible microscopes that we can put in the water basically. It will photograph the individual algal cells for us so we don’t have to go out and collect a sample. We can actually put a device like this in the water. Right now, they’re still kind of expensive. And then we also have other sorts of sensors that measure things like the oxygen concentration in the water.

If we see a lot of algae present, and they’re doing a lot of photosynthesis, there might be a lot of oxygen in the water when those algae die and [then] they start to decompose. We [then] may see a lot of big draw down in the oxygen content in the water. So that’s another way we can use in situ sensors to monitor what’s going on with the algae.

Great. Ed, are you doing anything different?

Yeah, more or less. Most of the time, we focus on the actual microscopic analysis, and one of the things that provides at this point in time is an idea of what kind of species are there with a reasonable amount of accuracy.

And of course, the new applications of genetic techniques to confirm the species composition systems is also growing quickly as the gene bank becomes better populated with different sequences. We’re more able to identify things using genetic analysis than we have in the past. And that’s going to continue to improve.

I’m sure AI will eventually provide some kind of input, so that’s kind of scary, but AI may help us out as well in the future. So it’s really a combination of things.

In terms of physical water column sampling, I think it’s a really important part of the long term monitoring programs because of the fact that we still need the microscopic analysis to actually identify, “Are we looking at a really harmful community from a toxin perspective or something else?” And so that’s still an important tool.

That was great. Thanks. So I think you touched on something really important here. You know, you’re collecting this long term dataset and collecting all this data. What do you guys do with it? How do you interpret it or go through and make these big observations or big “aha” moments so you can tell what’s going on later down the road? Malcolm, go ahead.

I think one of the first things that I tend to look at if you have a good time series is what sort of seasonal cycles might be present? Do we see particular species at particular times of year? And what does that tell us about their ecology and their life histories?

So when we’re out there collecting samples to analyze the species concentration — the algal species concentration — we’re also measuring temperature and salinity and various other things that we are then going back [to] and comparing those other measurements to our cell concentrations.

We can see, for instance, [that] maybe this particular species has a preference for lower salinity water and this one has a preference for higher salinity water. Doing those sorts of correlation analyses helps us understand better how these different species fit into the ecosystem.

Yeah. So we’re trying to accumulate as much information as we can from the physical chemical conditions in the water column and the biological conditions in the water column to be able to interpret the trends we’re seeing and how that correlates to the important environmental factors.

And because ultimately, Malcolm’s group and my group and other groups around the world are trying to develop model relationships to help us better predict what might be going on in the future as climate change happens, as eutrophication changes our system. Because that’s really, to some degree, one of the major questions we’re asked.

Well, okay, we have these blooms, what are we going to do about it? What can we do about it? What’s the most effective way of reducing the potential for harmful algal blooms? And so part of the dataset that we use is to kind of try to define those parameters which should be the targets for many.

I think you just hit on a perfect point that all that mitigation, all this data, helps to answer some questions that the public’s going to have as far as what’s going to be done to help mitigate these? Because they go out, they see the dirty water and they say, “When’s this gonna stop? Who’s going to do something about it?” I just want to briefly touch on something that the NEP put together a few years back when these large algae blooms were in place and that was the discussion — the consortium of everybody in the region to talk about harmful algal blooms.

I know Malcolm and Ed, you both gave updates at that meeting to kind of tell us what we’re seeing in the water — what kind of conditions are out there. If there’s something that we need to relay to the public, they’re able to get that information. So let’s talk a little bit long term.

You know, we haven’t had any real major algae blooms except for some Pyrodinium which is the bioluminescent algae that everybody loves to go kayak in at night — last summer. What’s your long-term outlook look like? Do you think the system is turning a corner and we’re going to get more of these healthy assemblages again or are we still looking at potential for major algae blooms?

Oh.

Go ahead, Malcolm.

Well prediction is always the tough part. But, you know, Ed probably has a bit of a longer perspective than I do since I’ve been here. I came, at what appeared to me, to be the height of the Aureoumbra bloom — the brown tide up in the northern Indian River Lagoon. And I was just absolutely shocked to see that. That was incredible to me. I’d never seen anything like that and it didn’t surprise me at all that all the seagrass had died off in that part of the lagoon because the water was just opaque. There was no light that could reach the bottom as far as I could see.

I don’t know if we fully understand what led to its blooming and subsequent decline. I’m sure Ed has some ideas about that. But now we’re seeing some pretty intense Pyrodinium blooms moving forward, and like you said, they are very bioluminescent. So it’s really cool to go kayaking in them at night and see that bioluminescence. But they are very, very toxic. They produce a toxin called saxitoxin, which is a very potent toxin. It causes a problem in the lagoon for these shellfish industries.

I know there are a few places that are trying to grow oysters and if anyone tried to eat an oyster that had been feeding on this Pyrodinium bloom, it would cause some serious health effects – if not death for a person that were to ingest this toxin. So that’s a serious concern going forward.

And the problem we had recently in the Southern half of the lagoon within the last several years was freshwater algae — a type called Microcystis coming from Lake Okeechobee — getting into the St. Lucie Estuary. This produces a different type of toxin — a liver toxin called microcystin. That was a big problem for a while, but thankfully the Army Corps of Engineers, which regulates discharges from Lake Okeechobee, has realized that this is a serious problem.

They have tried to avoid, as best as possible, discharging this algae into the Saint Lucie Estuary — so that is a good thing. That doesn’t mean it will never happen again. If they have to do discharges to lower the lake level, they will. And if it’s at the wrong time of year, that could still introduce algae, this Microcystis algae, into the Saint Lucie [Estuary again].

The other thing that I see that hasn’t, I don’t think, been a huge problem yet here, but it has been a big problem on the coast of California, [is] we see a lot of a type of microalgae called Pseudo-nitzschia in the lagoon. It doesn’t form discolored water, so it’s hard to realize if it’s even there if you’re not doing the appropriate analyses.

Right.

This species, or this group of this genus actually, this type of algae produces a toxin called domoic acid. It’s a neurotoxin and if you ingest it as a human, it will cause you to lose your memory actually. It causes something called amnesic shellfish poisoning.

Do we know what triggers toxin production from these algae at all?

It is going to vary from species to species, I think. But with Pseudo-nitzschia, in particular, it’s thought that for the algae itself, the toxin is what’s called a siderophore. It actually helps the algae acquire iron which is needed for its own metabolism. It just so happens that this compound that it produces is very toxic to humans and mammals and other animals.

Interesting. So, Ed, how about your take? What’s your outlook for the lagoon long-term?

I think one of the things by being in the system for so long [is that] you kind of get a feel for the dynamics and what’s unusual and what’s not.

Before 2011, we had recurring Pyrodinium blooms and their intensity was, at that time, [what] we considered quite strong in terms of the biomass that was there. And of course, certainly, high enough to cause concerns about people eating shellfish or certain species of fish in terms of exposure to saxitoxin. I think Pyrodinium from a perspective of human health, is not as serious [of an] issue because [if] we do know if there’s a big bloom of Pyrodinium, people will be warned not to eat fish that they catch.

Harvesting is not a big industry in the northern Indian River Lagoon. And hopefully, [based on] what’s been happening over the years, the system has been slowly changing back in terms of the distribution [of] nutrients towards what used to exist before 2011. And over the last two or three years, we’ve had less intense blooms, especially over the last two years.

And after the next couple of years, we’ll probably get a better picture of what’s happening and if that trend continues, we’re gonna still see Pyrodinium blooms that are not going to go away. Hopefully, their intensity or maximum intensity will modulate a bit from what they were previous to the last few years during the post 2011 when the blooms of Pyrodinium were actually more intense than they were before. And so hopefully this process is continuing.

Seagrasses look to be coming back. [In] the last year, I’ve seen an increase in seagrass distribution in the Northern Indian River Lagoon. I think if that trend continues and that stabilization of the sediments continues, then we may see a continued and persistent improvement in the system — barring another disruption.

Right. You just touched on something that’s really important where you said, you know, “I’m looking at the next couple years’ outlook.” So when we think about [this] long term monitoring and having a dedicated source of funding to continue these datasets into those future years, and looking back as well, how important is that to you guys? The NEP has dedicated a long term contract with both of you to do this monitoring. So how important is that for this work?

Just briefly, it’s been a great and a valuable tool to use this long term approach because the reality is in order to be able to model. And the dynamics in the system — you need to know the response of the system through a wide range of conditions. In other words, from year-to-year, you have drought years and wet years. You have El Nino conditions and La Nina conditions. You have storm years and non-storm years.

So if you don’t have that information, you don’t know how the system will respond to all these different phenomena and conditions. So the longer-term dataset you have, the better. You could say, “Well, I know how this system responds to all these different variables.” You can probably never get to the point where you understand every variable, but you want to understand the major ones like [the] El Nino [and] La Nina storms — drought versus flood years.

Those kinds of basic major phenomena — you need to understand them. And without the long term datasets, you really don’t. You’re not able to do that. And it takes longer than people think. A lot of people used to think five years is a long term dataset. Well, it’s not. It doesn’t cover all those variables.

Right. How about you, Malcolm, do you echo what [Ed may] have a different take on.

Oh, no, absolutely. Ed’s take is spot on. It’s absolutely critical. The continuous monitoring, to me, is what is really key. You need to be looking at these systems continuously and over long time periods to really start to understand the dynamics of the systems.

We now know that there are these long term decadal scale variations, like El Nino [and] La Nina, that are important. So you need more than 10 years of data to be able to understand what’s happening. You need to do this continuously.

State agencies, like FWC, are out there and they’re collecting samples, but they’re generally responding to events. If someone calls in a report of a bloom, they will go out and collect a sample. But that’s not enough to understand the dynamics of the system and understand the health of the system. You need to be out there, continuously collecting this data over the long term.

Yeah. The other thing is – a lot of times in the past — this happened with the red tide situation. They did a lot of work, but it [wasn’t] responsive. In other words, when there was a bloom, they went out and sampled, and they got a lot of information about what the conditions were like when there was a bloom going on. But then they missed all the information that was there when blooms weren’t going on which is just as important.

When you’re modeling, you need to have the full range of conditions. You need to be out there when it’s normal and fairly benign. You need to be out there over the full range, all the way out to the worst bloom conditions that you can imagine within the system.

And so now, over the last few years, FWC has done more of a full scale monitoring program under full conditions — all conditions — not just tracking when a bloom’s happening and seeing what the conditions are during the bloom. You need to be able to find out what conditions lead up to a bloom. Also, what conditions actually are there when a bloom doesn’t exist, are just as important in terms of modeling.

Yeah. That’s really, really important. I’m glad you guys touched on that, both, because we do those. I mentioned earlier [about] those monthly meetings and we can move it up if there’s a bloom condition. But it’s really interesting to get that update or data from your continual monitoring during those time frames when there is no bloom. And it’s [a] nice meeting to have — where no issues are going on right now. So it’s very nice to have that.

I want to wrap this up in a little bit and just say, what can our listeners do? And what should they do if they see a HAB? How should they report that? And what can they do as a person to have a positive impact on the system that doesn’t have a negative impact towards these blooms going on? Malcolm, I’ll let you take that one first.

That’s a great question, but doesn’t necessarily have the simplest answer. This is a pretty wide scale problem. To my mind, it really needs to be addressed at a pretty high level because it’s difficult for individuals to have a significant impact.

But, of course, there are small things that all of us can do that would probably, if we all did them, would be helpful. And you know, as we said, a lot of these blooms are fueled and driven by nutrients in the water. Those are the same nutrients that people are putting on their lawns as fertilizer. If that stuff runs off into the lagoon, you’re potentially fueling harmful algal bloom — so that’s something to be aware of. Minimize your use of these fertilizers.

Another big source of nutrients for the lagoon is septic systems. Unfortunately, I’m sure, it’s expensive for homeowners who have septic systems to transition to sewer systems. But that’s something that could probably have a big impact as well.

On a larger scale, I think, we just need to make our elected officials aware that this is a problem that needs to be addressed. And regulation is probably something that could be used appropriately to help mitigate the blooms — [to] help prevent them from happening in the first place.

Yeah. I think Malcolm’s right. I think sometimes people need to think about doing the small things, like, do they over-fertilize their own yards?

So at an individual level, if everybody focuses on doing some small things, it can have a big impact. And I think that’s important for people to realize — that what they do individually, isn’t insignificant. They can tell their friends and family, “Hey, this is what I’m doing, and maybe you should be doing it too.”

So communication is really important and continuing to learn and staying out there. You know, continuing to become educated and aware of what’s going on and what things are being done. I think, hopefully, we have enough access to information, like from NEP, that you guys put out and there’s access to. And also [the] FWC website has valuable information, so that people are aware, “Where should I look for good information?”

That’s great. And I’m glad you mentioned FWC because if you ever do see an algae bloom out there, that’s who you want to report it to.

And they can respond to it in real time which is part of their mission. Of course, if people get excited about it and want to get in touch with their legislators and other people in important, powerful places, that can help too.

Great. Well, I really appreciate you guys talking to me today about harmful algal blooms and just algae in general — really insightful to know.

Most people think algae are all bad and so it’s really interesting to get that perspective that there is that healthy balance. It’s just when it gets out of balance is when we have those problems. So I just want to give you each an opportunity to give your closing thoughts and maybe talk a little bit about your organizations — how to reach, get in touch with them if they want more information. Ed, go ahead first.

Yeah. This has been a fascinating project with [the] Indian River Lagoon, [which] I had an opportunity to work on, because of the long term care for the system. It’s been great that the St. Johns River Water Management District and FWC and, of course, the Indian River Lagoon NEP, has provided long term funding for this project. That’s been very appreciated from people like me who are very interested and devoted to studying this system and trying to come up with ideas for helping mitigate these harmful algal problems in the future.

I think people need to be aware that there are many really great scientists out there, like Malcolm and other people all around the state that are focusing on this harmful algal bloom issue. We’re focused on it and hopefully we’ll be able to, in the near future, come up with new and meaningful solutions and approaches to helping out with dealing with this harmful algal bloom issue.

Great. Malcolm?

I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to talk to you and everyone who’s listening to the podcast about these things. I think it’s a really fascinating thing to study and look at — and very important.

Well, everyone who lives near the lagoon and around the lagoon, should be aware of these types of issues. And I think it’s important to try and get that information out there. I’m happy to have the opportunity to do so.

And of course, I’m extremely appreciative of the funding that NEP provides to my lab to be able to develop these long term datasets. As I said, I think it’s absolutely critical that we have this type of information. If we really want to understand the environment and how we can help the health of the environment, it’s really important that these types of studies be conducted over a long term. So it’s a really great opportunity just to be a part of that research.

Excellent. Thank you, guys. I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.