![]() Noah Boyle, who was on spring break in Clearwater, Florida, told TODAY he saw dead fish "all over the place." Vacationers have posted photos on social media of dead fish washing up on the shores, while drone footage has captured the blooms throughout southwest Florida. In Manatee County, officials said they have already cleaned up 7,000 pounds of dead fish in the past few days. In addition to the red hue in the water, the algae bloom can kill fish and lead to respiratory effects in humans. Samples of Karenia brevis have been detected in Pinellas County, Manatee County, Sarasota County, Charlotte County, Lee County, Collier County and Monroe County in the past week, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Steve Davis, chief science officer at the Everglades Foundation, said on TODAY. "That causes this organism, that is typically in very low abundance, to basically dominate and to the point where it produces toxins, it releases those toxins into the water that leads to fish kills and obviously that has human health effects as well," Dr. When Karenia brevis algae multiply in large numbers due to excess nutrients, it causes a reddish-brown stain in the water. The study's authors include: Brendan Turley from the UM NOAA Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies Mandy Karnauskas, Matthew Campbell, David Hanisko from NOAA's Southeast Fisheries Science Center and Christopher Kelble from NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.Many different types of algae species can cause these blooms, but in Florida the organism is called Karenia brevis, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The study, titled "Relationships between blooms of Karenia brevis and hypoxia across the West Florida Shelf," will appear in the May issue of the journal Harmful Algae, which is currently online. ![]() There is an ongoing effort to collaborate with commercial fishermen in Southwest Florida to monitor for red tide blooms and formation of hypoxia, which incorporates data collected during various NOAA surveys conducted in the region annually. The researchers found that hypoxia was present in five of the 16 years examined, three of which occurred concurrently with extreme red tides in 2005, 2014, and 2018. The study, conducted as part of NOAA's Gulf of Mexico Integrated Ecosystem Assessment Program, examined nearly 20 years of oceanographic data that included temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen from the surface to the seafloor across the West Florida Shelf to determine the frequency of hypoxia and association with known red tides. "There are also concerns that the conditions favorable for combined red tide and hypoxia events will increase with climate change projections into the future." During the 2005 red tide that also had hypoxia, it was estimated that about 30% of the red grouper population was killed," said Brendan Turley, an assistant scientist at the UM Rosenstiel School and NOAA's Cooperative Institute of Marine and Atmospheric Studies. ![]() "These events are so disruptive they are being incorporated in population assessments of some grouper species for use in fishery management decisions. Hypoxic areas are typically referred to as 'dead zones'. These algae blooms turn the ocean surface red and produce toxins that are harmful to marine mammals, sharks, seabirds and humans causing a range of issues from respiratory irritation, localized fish kills to large-scale massive mortalities to marine life. Red tides are becoming a near annual occurrence off the west coast of Florida, which are caused by massive blooms of the algae Karenia brevis fueled in part by excess nutrients in the ocean. ![]()
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