It’s bad news if you’re a fish, but harmless to the land-dwelling crowd.
Golden algae has been known to bloom at local and area lakes, creating toxins that kill gill-breathing creatures.
“If it’s a mild bloom, it may just kill a few fish,” said John Clayton, a fisheries biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife. “If it’s a really intense bloom, it can practically kill every fish in the lake.”
The algae does not hurt humans or other land animals. Its fatal effects on fish, though, are enough to warrant further research for ways to fight it.
So far, the perfect solution has yet to be discovered.
“People ask why don’t we just spray it, (but) the problem is that would cost a lot of money and it would just come back,” Clayton said.
Golden algae has bloomed at Buffalo Springs Lake “at least three or four times” since 2003, Clayton said. It’s also been found in Lake Meredith and smaller lakes in Lubbock city parks, he said.
Golden algae made its first American appearance in 1985 in the Brazos River, according to Reynaldo Patiño, a Texas Tech biology professor who studies it. Since then, it’s spread to bodies of water in 22 other states, he said, often destroying their inhabitants.
“When the conditions are right, they grow, they multiply and they produce toxins,” he said. “It can have massive fish kills. It’s very toxic to any aquatic organisms that have gills.”
A native of coastal areas in Northern Europe such as the Baltic Sea, the algae has evolved in the U.S. to prefer freshwater, Patiño said.
And unlike most other species that are more active in the summer, golden algae holds January as a peak blooming time.
“It typically will bloom in the colder months of the year — that’s a unique thing,” Patiño said.
Because of its microscopic size, researchers determine if the algae is present by studying water samples in a laboratory setting. They collect the samples from lakes that could contain it, then return them to campus.
Matt VanLandeghem, a post-doctoral research associate in Tech biology, said a threshold of about 10,000 cells per milliliter usually indicates a bloom.
“If it’s one (thousand) or 2,000 cells per milliter, it’s typically not a big concern,” he said.
While biologists continue to seek answers against the algae, there’s at least some comfort in knowing the blooms eventually phase out naturally.
“They gradually grow, they reach a peak and they decline,” Patiño said.
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