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Fun Facts

• Biologists in the Phytoplankton Ecology program analyze almost 3000 water samples a year to look for Karenia brevis cells.
   
• The Phytoplankton Ecology culture facility has a strain of Karenia brevis that is over 60 years old (the Wilson strain, isolated in 1953).
   
• The Phytoplankton Ecology HPLC laboratory analyzes 23 different pigments to determine the phytoplankton community in a water sample.
   
• Last year (2013) we collected over 3,000 liters of water for nutrient, toxin, phytopigment and cell count analysis as part of our red tide work. That's over 800 gallons!
   
• It would take more than 1.3 trillion red tide cells, side by side, to go around the earth. Even a small bloom could easily have 20,000 times that number of cells.