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Congratulations to master’s candidate Sarah Newton! She has completed her field work and onto working on her thesis “Examining relationships between sediment nutrients & Halodule wrightii in the southern Indian River Lagoon”. Keep an eye out for her defense coming up this spring!
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 Introducing the newest member of our lab, Paige Aldred! This fall Paige started as our new Environmental Science master's student. She moved to Florida from the suburbs of Philadelphia. She completed her undergraduate degree in environmental science at the University of Delaware, where she researched microplastics, PFAs, and stormwater salinization's impact on land cover. Paige worked in environmental insurance this past year and was further exposed to the effects of pollutants. Her academic and professional experiences cultivated a passion for research on water quality and its impacts on ecosystem health, this interest attracted her to Dr. Lapointe’s lab. Paige’s master's research will examine the effects of algal blooms on South Florida reefs. Paige has made a great addition to our team and we’re thrilled to have her!
 FAU Harbor Branch’s HAB Lab’s Dr. Brian Lapointe has spent his career sharing science with policy makers to help conserve Florida Keys coral reefs. Can you spot Brian in the first photo? He’s on the right in the white polo talking to Florida Gov. Bob Martinez (center in blue) about how nutrient pollution is impacting the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Also pictured are Monroe County Sherriff Allison DeFoor (with bow tie), Congressman Ron Saunders (blazer & tie), & Brian’s then postdoc Dr. Dave Tomasko, now director of the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program (center, white polo). Second photo shows Brian, then Director of Marine Conservation at the Florida Keys Land & Sea Trust in Marathon, in the garage at the Florida Keys Land & Sea Trust facility before it was renovated to be his water quality laboratory. (The renovated lab is shown in the first photo). Photo credit: Larry Benvenuti
The TECTA B16 will bring our water quality monitoring goals to another level. 💪 Now our group will be able to determine the presence of bacteria that are indicators of fecal pollution. 💩 YUCK! But, knowledge is power, and we are excited to expand the capabilities of our lab to test for fecal pollution!
 HBOI Hablab collaborators having lunch on break from the Ocean Sciences Meeting 2024 in New Orleans, LA. From left to right, around the table, Sieu-Cuong San from University of South Florida (USF), Haibo Xu University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, Brian Barnes from USF, Ellyn Willse of HBOI, Greer Babbe of HBOI, Rachel Brewton of HBOI, Brian Lapointe of HBOI, and Yonggang Liu from USF.
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Looks like the Sargassum season has begun in Florida with biomass strandings occurring throughout the Keys.  Lower Matecumbe Key April 14, 2023  Lower Matecumbe Key April 14, 2023  Bahia Honda State Park, March 28, 2023 "Officials in Florida are preparing for a 5,000-mile floating island of seaweed called the sargassum belt to make its way on shore, where it’s expected to become both a nuisance and a health hazard as it rots." See article in Forbes at the link below.
   Dr. Lapointe presented research regarding differences between Lake Okeechobee and the downstream estuaries it is connected to in a presentation entitled, "Nutrient Availability Across the Lake Okeechobee Waterway: Relations to Microcystis Blooms in the St. Lucie & Caloosahatchee Estuaries" at the 2023 meeting of the Southeastern Estuarine Research Society in Charleston, SC. This research is primarily funded by a grant to co-author Dr. Chuanmin Hu of the University of South Florida by the NASA-Water Resources Program.
 "A loose raft of brown seaweed spanning about twice the width of the U.S. is inching across the Caribbean. Currently, bucketloads of the buoyant algae are washing up on beaches on the eastern coast of Florida earlier in the year than usual, raising scientists’ concerns for what coming months will bring." See article in Scientific American at the link below.
 "The mass, known as the great Atlantic Sargassum belt, is drifting toward the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists say seaweed is likely to come ashore by summer to create a rotting, stinking, scourge." Read the article in the New York Times at the link below.
Big, stinky blob of algae takes aim at Florida beaches. What's causing it? Is it climate change?3/14/2023  "Beachgoers in Florida and the Caribbean could be greeted by heavy blankets of smelly seaweed in the weeks ahead as a 5,000-mile swath of sargassum drifts westward and piles onto white sandy beaches." Read the story in USA Today at the link below.
Dr. Lapointe & R. Brewton Present at the 11th U.S. Symposium on Harmful Algae in Albany, NY10/29/2022 Dr. Lapointe and Research Scientist Rachel Brewton both presented at the 11th U.S. Symposium on Harmful Algae in Albany, NY. The symposium theme was “Science to Support Solutions from Shore to Shore.“ Both presented in the "HABs Across the Freshwater to Marine Continuum" session with Brewton presenting in the "Watersheds" sub-section and Dr. Lapointe presenting in the "Estuaries" sub-section. Brewton presented about our septic system- groundwater- surface water research in Lee County, while Dr. Lapointe presented data from a cross-Lake Okeechobee Waterway cruise.
Research by Rachel Brewton, Dr. Lapointe, and colleagues was recently published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. The study was designed in collaboration with co-author Lisa Kreiger of Lee County Department of Natural Resources to assess the impacts of septic systems on water quality in North Fort Myers, which is located on the Caloosahatchee River Estuary, just upstream from the Gulf of Mexico. The study found that groundwater and surface waters near septic systems was contaminated with human waste, as evidenced multiple indicators including sucralose an artificial sweetener, pharmaceuticals, high ammonium, and enriched nitrogen isotope values. Links between human waste pollution and harmful algal blooms were also identified. It was concluded that Lee County has a unique opportunity to significantly improve water quality by reducing dependence upon aging septic systems adjacent to surface water. This study was funded by Lee County with the second year supported by an EPA 319 grant awarded to Lisa Kreiger.  Wastewater management is a critical issue globally. In Florida, the importance of this issue is heightened by the proximity to sensitive ecosystems. Dr. Lapointe, Rachel Brewton, and co-author Jeff Littlejohn have published new research on the performance of distributed wastewater treatment units, a new alternative to conventional septic systems or centralized sewer. An OnSyte Performance, LLC. distributed wastewater treatment unit was installed at a residence in central Florida after which the unit's inflow, outflow, and the downgradient groundwater were all monitored to assess the performance. Many effluent parameters significantly decreased compared to influent, including ammonia (NH3; 97%), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN; 95%), total nitrogen (TN; 88%), the TN:TP ratio (84%), fecal coliforms (92%), carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand (CBOD; 96%), and total suspended solids (TSS; 96%). The team concluded that the unit was effective at improving quality of wastewater effluent. These systems could be especially effective in sensitive areas where advanced wastewater treatment has been mandated or is needed. This study was funded by OnSyte Performance, LLC with oversight from Florida Department of Environmental Quality.   We would like to welcome our new Masters Student, Ocean Webber, to the HAB lab. They will be joining the lab as a Graduate Research Assistant on the Indian River Lagoon Ten-Year Restudy Project.  "Humans are increasing nitrogen loading at unprecedented rates that now exceed sustainability of the Earth's vital ecosystems," said Brian Lapointe, Ph.D., senior author and research professor, FAU Harbor Branch. "Our study illustrates that implementing advanced wastewater treatment or distributed wastewater (DWT) technologies in key locations may allow for decreased nutrient loading and improved estuarine water quality and seagrass health in the Indian River Lagoon and elsewhere with similar conditions. Moreover, as sea level rise is expected to further confound these issues in addition to more extreme and frequent tropical storms and hurricanes, a better understanding of these dynamics will be essential for sustainable management of coastal resources." Read more about our newly published research on the Indian River Lagoon at the link below.  New research by Laura Herren, M.S., Dr. Lapointe, and other HBOI colleagues was just published in Marine Pollution Bulletin. The study examined groundwater and surface water interactions in Indian River County, FL, which is located along the Indian River Lagoon. The study found that septic systems increase nutrient concentrations in groundwaters and surface waters by using the artificial sweetener sucralose as a wastewater tracer. Enriched stable N isotope values of groundwater, surface water, and macrophytes also confirmed this contamination. The study concluded that septic systems should be removed from poorly sited, low-lying waterfront areas, particularly near sensitive aquatic habitats.  Dr. Lapointe traveled to the Mexican Consulate in Orlando, FL to present information about Sargassum blooms to the Governor of Quintana Roo , Mexico. The Sargassum influx has had catastrophic impacts tourism in Quinta Roo.  "Only 17 percent of live coral cover remains on fore-reefs in Belize. A study finds new evidence that nitrogen enrichment from land-based sources like agriculture run-off and sewage, are significantly driving macroalgal blooms to increase on the Belize Barrier Reef and causing massive decline in hard coral cover. With only 2 percent of hard coral cover remaining in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, it's too late to save that reef, but there's still hope for the Belize Barrier Reef." -Science Daily News
Read the entire article about Dr. Lapointe's new study at the link below. A new study by Dr. Lapointe on the Belize Barrier Reef published in Marine Pollution Bulletin is now available online. In this study, conducted with HAB Lab collaborators Alex Tewfik and Myles Phillips of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Belize Program, examined the effects of land-based nutrient pollution on the Belize Barrier Reef through the analysis of water and macroalgal samples. In this study, recent data was compared to baseline data from the 1980s, which allowed the authors to observe changes that occurred over this time frame. Lapointe et al. concluded that increasing land-based nutrient pollution has driven macroalgal blooms and coral stress. You can access the article at the link below.  |
