Tracking Phytoplankton
What Plankton Are In the Estuary?
Billions of tiny plankton are floating in the estuary and Gulf of Maine. These microscopic creatures form the foundation of the food web. The populations change throughout the year as water temperatures, currents, and nutrients change.
A few species of these tiny plankton produce toxins that can make people sick if they happen to eat shellfish that have been eating these plankton. To prevent that from happening, the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) has an extensive testing program. One piece of that program is water sampling stations scattered along the coast. Some of these sites are tested by DMR staff, and some are tested by volunteers. KELT coordinates a crew of volunteers who sample one site off of Bay Point Road in Georgetown. The volunteers sample the site every week from May through October and they report the results to the DMR.
When volunteers search through samples for the toxic plankton that the state is concerned about, they also peer through the microscope at the diverse array of phytoplankton and zooplankton that live in our local waters.
Resources for Phytoplankton Volunteers
The Maine DMR has a great collection of phytoplankton id guides and instructions for phytoplankton sampling:
DMR Phytoplankton Sampling Datasheet (Excel spreadsheet)
Phytoplankton Target Species Datasheets (Excel spreadsheet)
Scotia Test Instruction Video
Check out the video below in case you need a reminder about some of the details for running a Scotia test for PSP or ASP.
Run a PSP test if: you count 1 or more Alexandrium in the sample. (If a positive test was recorded by another Kennebec Estuary volunteer already this year, there is no need to complete another test.)
Run an ASP test if: you count more than 267 and less than 2,000 Pseudo-nitzschia in the sample. Add together both the small PN and large PN to get the total number of Pseudo-nitzschia. (If a positive test was recorded by another Kennebec Estuary volunteer already this year, there is no need to complete another test.)