Golden Alga Workshop Summary Report - Texas Parks & Wildlife ...

Saturday October 25, 2003 Subgroup Recommendations:
Subgroups met to consider 5 separate questions and to recommend actions.
1. What research protocols do you believe would provide the greatest “bang for the buck?”
(Include ideas on modeling here.)
Actions:
• Recognize that much general research and knowledge is still needed.
• Collect monitoring data, including full cycle of blooms (beginning to end).
• Establish more standardized protocols for effective data analysis and comparison.
• Develop additional information on numbers, affected species, and range.
• Establish if there is an association with introduced species in Texas.
• Investigate allelopathy events during and after the event.
• Increase sampling frequency to the maximum feasible levels (weekly/biweekly).
• Establish how many strains are loose in Texas and if they are the same or related.
• Dovetail lab input with monitoring efforts more closely.
• Determine which methods work and which environments are needed by conducting trials
on small scales.
• Facilitate research that enables us to attack the source(s) of the problem, especially
nutrients.
• Consider variables in sedimentation as contributory factors.
• Increase work on experimental exposures and toxin study.
• Build a model for the mixotrophy/phagotrophy of the event; do more than cell counts.
• Establish a database the HAB community can contribute to and utilize.
• Encourage greater coordination of agency and academic efforts.
• Establish and publish the current “knowns” NOW.
Specific Research or Data:
• Sampling of community structures: zooplankton, phytoplankton, and bacterial
• Irradiance profiles
• Sediment profiles for persistence
• Nitrogen, Phosphorus, available CO 2 and O 2 concentrations, pH, Biochemical Oxygen
Demand, Chemical Oxygen Demand
• Silicates, Cobalt, B12
• Specific ions and Conductivity
• Data management with Geographic Information System (GIS) databases are needed for
georeference.
Discussion
• Groups in the Pacific Northwest have been successful changing flows. Explore
similarities here.
• Integration of state databases will have to be considered. (Look at Florida’s experience.)
This is a major undertaking, but ultimately it can yield huge results. Get started now with
planning for data management wants and needs. (TPWD is developing the Resource
Information System to assist in this.)
• Coordinate efforts between groups such as Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
and the Texas Clean Rivers Program. Coordinate monitoring meetings. Texas Parks and
Wildlife Department should be participating in these.
PWD RP T3200-1203
Golden Alga Workshop Notes 12