Copyright 1998 Scripps Howard Newspapers

Press Journal (Vero Beach, FL)

September 14, 1998, Monday

SECTION: A section; Pg. A5

LENGTH: 421 words

HEADLINE: RESEARCHERS TRY TO PREDICT RED-TIDE STRIKES

BODY:

ST. PETERSBURG (AP) - The microscopic algae that causes red tide is a single-cell organism about one-thousandth of an inch long. It's shaped like a stingray and can turn the sea mahogany, kill fish and chase away beachgoers.

The federal government is spending $ 4.1 million to fund researchers who want to figure out when and where it will strike.

Successfully predicting red tide outbreaks could prove vital to Florida tourism, fisheries and public health, said Kevin Sellner of the National list Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which is providing the grant.

"There are lots and lots of practical applications for this ability to predict what red tides are going to do," said Gary Kirkpatrick, a scientist at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota.

Karen Steidinger, a world-renowned authority on red tide, is leading the five-year project, which includes two dozen other scientists. A biologist with the state Environmental Protection Department, Steidinger has studied the cell for three decades.

There are few other scientists of Steidinger's stature when it comes to red tide, according to Peter Betzer, chairman of the University of South Florida's marine science department.

"Her work is critical to trying to unravel how these little things operate," Betzer said.

Red tide generally spawns offshore and occasionally moves inshore. It can go dormant for years, reawakening under the right conditions.

The growth of a red tide has been associated with the loop current, rivers of nutrient-rich warm water from the Caribbean that swirl into the Gulf.

Data collected by the scientists will be fed into a computer to test a red-tide prediction formula similar to one used in forecasting hurricanes.

The computer codes alone fill a dozen pages - a measure of the complexity of the prediction model that researchers will begin to test once they have enough data.

Steidinger's job is to coordinate the work of all of the scientists who ultimately will feed their research results to John Walsh, a professor and computer modeler at the USF.

Walsh hopes the team eventually will come up with a red tide forecast that newspapers will publish just as they do weather forecasts.

"To my knowledge, we've never tried this before," Walsh said. "It's actually kind of fun because it has some value to society. It's the same thing as predicting which way an oil spill will drift. But the oil is easier because it isn't living and dying like ( red tide) is."

LOAD-DATE: September 14, 1998