FloridaRed Tide

Plankton Parasites

The research into the little known (until reported here), area of Plankton Parasites (or parasitoids ), is paying off. In case you haven’t heard, there is a species of micro organisms that feed on specific species of plankton (K. Brevis is one of them). It seems that when several harmful algal blooms like red tide blooms occur in a series for more than a few years in a row (like the last 15 years in Florida or the last 5 in Maine) the problem may be that this parasite can’t survive something and thus can’t flourish enough to reduce the amount of K Brevis in the water.

Here’s some quotes from an article about it:

Using a new technique that allows researchers to track the parasites as they infect the plankton with fluorescent markers, Guillou and her colleagues were able to monitor both an invasive species of plankton and the parasites for three years in a coastal estuary in France. What they were able to see was the very early infection of the plankton by the parasite, and then the eventual swelling and bursting of the plankton as the parasite’s many offspring broke free — hungry to infect again.

“We hypothesize that when a bloom occurs, these parasitoids are not able to infect the invasive species,” Guillou said.

quoted news story