MONITORING CYANOBACTERIA IN MIXED ALGAL POPULATIONS IN AN EFFORT TO PREDICT THE ONSET OF CYANOHABS

Session: Poster Session

Tom Brumett, Turner Designs, [email protected]

Abstract

Global occurrence of CyanoHABs is increasing at an alarming rate sparking a need for development of new methods and tools to rapidly quantify, monitor, and mitigate bloom events.  Countless annual timelines have been recorded showing increased bloom activity at a certain time of the year, “hot” season, followed by relaxation period.  During a “hot” season, when bloom activity is expected to peak, we’re preparing for sampling and analysis in an effort to better characterize the factors leading to the onset of HABs.  During the relaxation period there may also be short lived HAB events stemming from changes such as increased anthropogenic input or anomalous heat spikes. These off-peak bloom events may offer better information for determining the driving factors behind HABs, but are hard to catch using in situ fluorometers that specifically monitor cyanobacterial marker pigments such as phycocyanin (PC), which only provide a partial answer to the question, “Is a HAB fast approaching?”  A more detailed approach using high frequency, field-ready tools such as the CyanoFluor or PhytoFind, which use pigment ratios, allows us to rapidly monitor cyanobacteria populations WITHIN total algal populations providing information which can be used to predict the onset of HABs.