{"id":14675,"date":"2021-03-08T10:30:15","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T15:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=14675"},"modified":"2024-08-16T16:18:35","modified_gmt":"2024-08-16T20:18:35","slug":"in-full-bloom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/in-full-bloom\/","title":{"rendered":"In Full Bloom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
Haley Plaas is a Ph.D. student in environmental sciences and engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill\u2019s Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City. She received the joint Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership \u2013 North Carolina Sea Grant Fellowship in 2019 and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2015, I bid my Midwestern home goodbye and set out to pursue a degree in marine science at the University of Miami, Florida. My first exposure to harmful algal bloom (HAB) research was at the Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota, Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That summer, Florida endured dual toxic algal blooms: a massive red tide bloom in the Gulf, and an extensive network of blooms from cyanobacteria \u2014 blue-green algae \u2014 downstream from Lake Okeechobee. I was taken aback by the immense damage to Florida\u2019s beaches, air quality, tourist industry, fisheries, and public health, all from microscopic algae. And it wasn\u2019t just happening in Florida. HABs like these were expanding in aquatic ecosystems around the globe, threatening key water resources in countless communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n