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Happy Boxing Day

December 26, 2012

This past winter WHOI Senior Research Technician Dave Kulis installed these Lexan boxes in Nauset Marsh on Cape Cod  to test an experimental method to reduce the severity of harmful algal blooms (HABs) known as red tides. The HAB species that proliferate in these waters produce toxins that are incorporated in shellfish and can sicken humans who eat them. Between blooms, the algae form dormant cysts that settle onto bottom sediments and can survive for years, awaiting favorable conditions to germinate. Kulis used a hydraulic rake to re-suspend bottom sediments inside the boxes, so that the cysts are buried in deeper, oxygen-poor sediment layers where they cannot germinate.(Photo courtesy of Dave Kulis, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)