Press Releases

November 12, 1999
Alumni Research Team Examines Brown Tide Bloom Mystery

Contact:
Jane Finalborgo
(516) 287 8313
Fax: (516) 283 4081

A connection between Southampton College and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science has resulted in a new federally funded research project examining the Brown Tide in Shinnecock Bay.

Research Scientist Michael Lomas, a 1994 graduate of the college who is now a research scientist at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, teamed up with two recent Southampton marine science graduates this summer to study the Brown Tide. The devastating algal bloom has sporadically plagued the waters of eastern Long Island bays, as well as Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island and Barnegat Bay, New Jersey, since it first appeared in 1985, and more recently the coastal bays in Maryland.

As a result of this summer's work, Dr. Lomas and a team at the University of Maryland have been awarded a grant from NOAA to continue the research they started. Over the next two years, this research effort will use the facilities and assistance of the Southampton College Marine Station and staff in seeking to unravel the dynamics of the algal bloom that has been devastating to East End bay scallops and sea grasses.

Brown Tide is caused by dense blooms of the small phytoplankton cell Aureococcus anophagefferens. The proliferation of this phytoplankton in effect "starves" sea grasses of the light needed for photosynthesis causing these plants to die. Bay scallops and other shellfish that require seagrasses for spawning and habitat are also affected. In addition, Aureococcus is a poor food source for scallops, which can result in the scallops, in effect, starving to death.

Working with Jeremey Jones and Debra Clougherty, both 1999 graduates of Southampton College, using the facilities at the College's Marine Station, Dr. Lomas focused his work this past summer on the dynamics of a Brown Tide bloom in Shinnecock Bay, examining in particular the nutrient chemistry of the water. Research has shown that decreased spring rainfall correlates with Brown Tide blooms in the Peconic Bay system, but this correlation does not hold for all the East End Bays. Understanding why the Brown Tide blooms occur in some bays but not in others in the same regional system, is a focus of this recently funded research.

The data collected by Dr. Lomas' team supports the growing body of evidence that high concentrations of dissolved organic nutrients, phosphorus and carbon in addition to nitrogen, are associated with Brown Tide blooms. Aureococcus is known to use these nutrients from organic substances, and thus may be able to flourish in waters where other plants cannot.

"Although the dynamics of Aureococcus blooms are being elucidated, the exact mechanisms of interaction between the environment and the organism are still unclear," said Dr. Lomas.

For further information, contact Richard McIntyre, Director of the Marine Science Center at 287-8393.