From Spirituality to Science: The red tide phenomenon

Back in the days when I was quite young and could hardly pronounce more than few words of English, skimming through books characterized by beautiful and well-coloured images together with my peers was one of my favourite hobbies. Sometimes, we play games by taking turns to open random pages in the books and then counting the number of lives present the image on the opened pages. Whosoever opens pages with the highest number of lives or living organisms wins. It was quite fun back then, although it seems a bit dumb remembering it now.

There are now more sophisticated and intellectually engaging games growing children could play. Such is the level of technological evolution that has taken place. Can we actually say humans have evolved with technology? That definitely is for another discussion.

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One of such books we played with then was known as "My book of bible stories". It contains short stories and beautiful images about some key events in the Christian's holy book, the Bible. One of the events that stood out then was the enslavement of the children of Isreal by the then king of Egypt, Pharaoh. He tortured and made the Israelites to toil day and night until his cup became filled and God sent Moses to go and deliver the Israelites. The king refused to release the Israelites from slavery and it was reported that God inflicted Egypt with ten plagues as a way of admonition.

In one of the plagues, all the water bodies in Egypt were reported to have turned to blood with fishes and other aquatic organisms losing their lives in the process. The transformation was reported to have taken place after Moses touched the water bodies with his rod and the situation persisted for few days before normalcy returned. The synergistic effects of the transformation along with other plagues actually made the King to reluctantly allowed the liberation of the Israelites.

That was as spiritual as it can be. The then Pharaoh, as recalcitrant as a man can be would probably have been more determined not to release the Israelites if he had known that some of the plagues can be explained beyond the spiritual realm, especially the water turning to blood phenomenon. Only if one out of his army of magicians had been an Algologist, someone who sepcializes in the study of algae.

You wanna ask why?

This is simply because the turning of water to blood can be scientifically likened to the red tide, a phenomenon used to describe the sudden blooming of some specific species of algae in water bodies, especially in marine or estuarine habitats, the latter being a habitat where salt water from the oceans mixes with fresh water from the land. The species of algae are collectively called dinoflagellates. In most cases, harmful algal blooms (HABs) is the term used to explain this naturally occurring phenomenon.

^{By Marufish - Flickr, CC 表示-継承 2.0, Link,}

The group of algae that causes the red tide is largely microscopic with high reproductive capacities clustering and inducing a colour change in water bodies in the process. The source of colour induction is the photosynthetic pigments of the dinoflagellates which usually range from green to brown to red. As a result, when these algae are present in high concentration in water bodies, the latter appear murkish white to black. In most cases, they appear blood red or less frequently, brown.

What usually causes the sudden blooming?

The sudden multiplication of the red tide inducing algal species has been reported to be due to changes in series of environmental factors. According to National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, the following factors have been implicated in the sudden proliferation of red tide inducing dinoflagellates:

• Elevated temperature on ocean surfaces
• Sluggish circulation of water bodies
• Extreme weather-related natural events such as hurricanes, drought, and floods
• Nutrient enrichment of water bodies such as phosphorus, nitrogen, and carbon

However, it is important to know that while these factors have been found to contribute to blooming of dinoflagellates, their interaction that brings about the process is yet to be well understood.

Is red tide associated with the death of aquatic organisms?

The answer is yes. The dinoflagellates associated with red tides produce potent toxins which are generally harmful to aquatic organisms as a result of building up of the toxins in their system. The toxins have been found to affect nervous and digestive system of animals and as a result, apart from being harmful to fishes, other animals that feed on the fishes can also suffer the same fate.

Effects such as wildlife mortalities of marine and coastal species of fish, birds, marine mammals and other biological organisms have reported as one of the most noticeable aftermaths of the red tides phenomenon. Toxins from the dinoflagellates have also been reported to directly or indirectly cause illness in humans. Some group of fishes have high tolerance for the dinoflagellates's toxins and as a result, the toxin becomes bioaccumulated in their system. Consumption of such fishes by humans can cause serious and sometimes fatal illness.

^{By Prof. Gordon T. Taylor, Stony Brook University - corp2365, NOAA Corps Collection, Public Domain, Link}

One of the illnesses caused by the red tide algae include Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning which is caused by saxitoxin from the Alexandrium algal species. It has been reported to occur along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts in the US and Canada. Ingestion of shellfish contaminated with Paralytic Shellfish Poison toxins causes poisoning, resultin in the disruption to nerve functioning and eventual paralysis.

Around Europe and Japan, a red tide algal species, Dinophysos species has been reported to cause Diarrhetic Shellfish Poisoning in human. Poisoning by diarrhetic shellfish induces symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and cramps though has been generally found to be non-lethal. Aside from the two regions, the organism has also been found in countries such as Canada, the US, Chile, New Zealand, and Thailand.

One of the best known cases of red tides caused by microscopic dinoflagellates occurs nearly every summer along Florida’s Gulf Coast. Their toxins have been reported to have killed fishes, make shellfish dangerous to eat and sometimes make the surrounding air difficult to breathe.

Caveat

I believe that a lot of natural and scientifically explainable events have been attributed to the supernatural either in a deliberate attempt to mislead people or simply due to chronic ignorance. This is just the scientist in me writing, not a deliberate attempt to discredit or attack religion.

Please feel free to express your opinions in the comment section of this article. I am opened to correction and re-orientation. :).

Thank you for reading.

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References

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britannica

oceanservice

sciencedaily

carleton

livescience

wikipedia

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