Who put the Karen in Karenia brevis (red tide)? She did. Meet the woman behind the name

For a human, getting a species named after you is a Really Big Deal.

But an entire genus? Wow.

That’s “an even greater accolade than having a single species named after you,” according to a BBC article announcing that a nine-member genus of freshwater fish had been dubbed Dawkinsia, for preeminent evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. (For those who need to brush up on their taxonomy, a genus is the lifeform classification that contains species. For example, humans’ best friend, the dog, is part of the Canis genus: Canis familiaris, while the wolf is Canis lupus and the coyote is Canis latrans).

Not that it’s a competitive game or anything, but world-renowned Florida scientist Karen Steidinger can go Professor Dawkins one better – three better, actually: The genus that honors her, Karenia, boasts 12 member species.

The dozen single-celled saltwater lifeforms that bear her name photosynthesize, but they’re not plants. They use slender whiplike structures called flagella to move about (think swimming sperm) and some produce toxins.

More:Nearly three years after devastating red tide, harvest ban remains in place for three species

The Steidinger namesake most familiar to Southwest Floridians is Karenia brevis, better-known as red tide, which regularly plagues our Gulf waters. It’s recently been killing fish and royal terns and keeping beachgoers away from Lynn Hall Park on Fort Myers Beach, where the state health department warned of a bloom last Friday.

It once was known as Gymnodinium brevis, but in 2001, that changed to Karenia, in recognition of Steidinger’s decades of 60-hour research weeks at St. Petersburg’s Florida Marine Research. 

When she retired in 2003, a profile of her that ran in the environmental journal Bay Soundings offered an abbreviated list of Steidinger’s accomplishments, which “tells the tale of a jack-of-many-trades and master of most. She’s seen tremendous success in science, management, policy, and education, and developed a solid (harmful algae bloom) program now staffed with 22 research assistants. When she served as chief of FMRI, she boosted her budget from $5,000 to $5 million in seven years, established many programs still in existence today, and secured funding to develop the state-of-the-art marine science complex. ... All told, she has advised more than 18 countries on HAB events, and has authored more than 70 publications on algae blooms (and) convened the 10th International Conference on Harmful Algal Blooms.”

More:Latest red tide bad news: It's killing royal terns and sending some humans to emergency room

The News-Press recently caught up with Steidinger to ask her about her work – both before and after retiring.

How does it feel to have the science rock-star honor of having a genus bearing your name?

In a word, honored. The Danish scientists who named Karenia as a genus of dinoflagellates said “Named after Karen Steidinger in recognition of her many contributions to dinoflagellate research.” Although I often wondered if I had to share the honor with a Dane named Karen Blixen who was one of their country’s famous authors and wrote “Out of Africa.”

More:Researchers warn red tide is back in Southwest Florida

In the field of taxonomy, which includes the naming of new species, species are continually reassessed, particularly those that are ecologically prominent, so the name may change again.

I’ve read that even though you’re technically retired, you were still working regularly. Is that still true? If so, what’s your current project(s)?

Yes, I work part-time on projects that need to be completed and put in a retention file as well as scientific manuscripts. One of those projects has been sorting through 50+ years of FWRI images of phytoplankton, including the toxic species, to either discard or digitize. Today’s technology for HAB research and monitoring can use good images of dinoflagellates to help assess their digital images from the FLOWCAM particle analyzer or the Imaging Flow Cytobot. These instruments require multiple image libraries for their classification software. I still co-author scientific papers with colleagues, and contributed to three papers in 2020, two of them taxonomic papers. Today’s science is collaborative and it’s rare to see a scientific paper authored by one person unless it is a review.

To the lay observer, it seems that a growing number of water quality advocates are implicating nutrients from the landscape in red tide blooms. From what I read of your reaction to such conclusions in the past, you seemed not to agree. What are your thoughts about that now?

My current thoughts about nutrients and Karenia red tides have not changed. There are many species that form blooms other than Karenia. There are the blooms that occur in Lake Okeechobee caused by cyanobacteria that color the water green and are a different group of algae than Karenia and have different pigments. The nutrient sources for these blooms are still under investigation as to what they are and where they come from. These cyano blooms can be exported to the estuary where if there is another phytoplankton bloom, such as red tide that has come from offshore to inshore and entered the estuaries, the two blooms will meet, providing the salinity doesn’t get too low for Karenia to survive. But do lake discharges cause Karenia brevis blooms? No, Karenia brevis blooms start offshore in low-nutrient marine waters, 10 to 40 miles (out), and gradually are transported inshore by currents. Do “cyanobacteria” have anything to do with the Karenia bloom development offshore? Actually yes, but the cyanobacteria offshore is Trichodesmium, a marine species (it’s different from lake cyanobacteria), and originates way offshore – not on land and it is fed by marine and atmospheric sources of nutrients such as iron from the Saharan Dust and ammonium from dead fish decay.

Please don’t get me wrong. Nutrient pollution from land does adversely affect our estuaries and nearshore. And people, communities, municipalities should not pollute, they should be stewards of the environment for the present and generations to come. But put your current resources where it will matter today and tomorrow; there is always new technology. Until we know where red tides start offshore and all the driving forces, we need to concurrently concentrate on avenues of mitigation inshore.

More:Researchers growing fish stew to simulate red tide conditions

Where do you think the best red tide science is currently being done?

It all depends on what you mean by “red tide.” Red tide has been Alexandrium blooms in the northeast US, Noctiluca blooms all over the world, Pyrodinium blooms in Malaysia, etc. But if you mean Karenia brevis blooms in the Gulf of Mexico, or those that have been transported to the east coast by the Gulf Stream, then I have to say (by) an unofficial consortia of many laboratories around the Gulf of Mexico and its collaborators. Science can not be done alone in today’s world, there have been so many advances, so much new technology, so many new researchers attracted to the field that the “tool box” is many layered and requires experts to ply their trade.

If you had the power to get any questions about Karenia answered, what would you want to know?

Two things: One, where does the population of Karenia brevis specifically come from. It comes from offshore, but where offshore and why? Two, what is the total life cycle of Karenia brevis? We know that it has a sexual cycle, but we do not know if that union produces long lived zygotes or cells that can rest on the bottom or resting cells that remain in the water column which can reseed blooms down the road.

What else should I ask you about? Anything else a very interested Southwest Florida population should know about red tides?

Karenia brevis blooms have been in the Gulf of Mexico for hundreds of years as documented by fish kills, toxic shellfish, aerosols. They will be here for some time to come. The question is: What can we do to lessen the impact to ourselves, the environment, and the economy?