LEE COUNTY, Fla. — In a fourth-floor Marine and Environmental Sciences lab at Florida Gulf Coast University, algae are the star of the show.
"We get sent samples from across the U.S.," said FGCU Water School student Trinity Allan.
More specifically, researchers like Trinity Allan are looking into Blue-Green algae to learn more about the toxins they produce and how much of it we breathe in during a bloom.
As of now, detailed guidelines for exposure to these toxins only really exist for drinking water or recreation—it’s a vast difference from the amount of guidance we see when compared to red tide.
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"We have a good base data [set] about red tide, but we don't have that for the blue-green algae and so we're trying to provide that baseline data so we know where to jump off from," said Allan.
Collecting that "baseline data" is such a passion project for Allan that she has dedicated her Master's thesis to the topic.
Under the hum of two water tanks, she’s working to figure out if saltwater makes the algae release more of those toxins into the air.
She’s also trying to see how many of these toxins we breathe in on a windy day by measuring the number of particles the algae releases.
“We write down the total count. So that time, it was 18,351," Allan said.
It’s a measure she’s taken every day for months and she’ll repeat this process until early summer when she expects to have more concrete answers to her questions.
It's work that Allan’s professor, Doctor Barry Rosen, is tracking from under the microscope—and he says the implications of this work could help shape future guidelines.
“You’re by the water, there’s no air movement or there is air movement; how much of that gets up into the air? How much are we breathing in? Again, it might be minuscule and not a concern, but as a scientist, we need to know," he said.
Doctor Rosen adds that this research could also help them better understand the impact that other toxins have on us.
But in the end, Allan tells us she hopes this vital work doesn't overshadow the good that blue-green algae can also do.
"Blue-green algae does provide really important resources for the environment as well as far as the food chain and photosynthesizing and producing oxygen, all these things that we kind of just forget about when we just see the bad side," said Allan.
