Behold The Ocean

Max:
So you need to understand all the physical-chemical ecological processes are together in these super complex ecosystems. So moving forward to the fundamental understanding of some parts of those oceanographic places will help improve the knowledge of how all the other different parts of this ecosystem can be affected.

Akosua:
Can you talk about the occurrence of harmful algal blooms?

Max:
Yes. Well, HABs events are harmful algal blooms. Certain phytoplankton species trigger blooms in certain oceanographic and atmospheric conditions. They reproduce, creating this massive biomass in the water, and some of them are toxic. They have poison inside their bodies. Phytoplankton feeders that are mostly mussels and blue mussel clamps and all those types of mollusks filter the water and eat the phytoplankton. So when you have red tides, these guys will eat them also, and they will absorb a really high concentration of the poison. So you can not eat these mussels. Due to climate change, we have the perfect conditions for this phytoplankton to grow and form HABs events more frequently.

These blooms are more frequent, longer, and more intense in terms of geographical expansion and intensity of the number of cells per cubic volume of water. So in this region, there's a long history with HABs events, and it's perhaps one of the most affected regions with harmful algal blooms. And the thing is that harmful algal blooms weren't a thing before in the past...in the near past, no, they simply weren't a thing.