Ian hit about a month ago, and west coast Florida is still plagued with red tide and flesh eating bacteria. What happens at a microscopic level for these blooms to happen?
In: 91
The ocean has many different layers or strata, and a hurricane plays havoc with so much of this.
In shallow areas there is also a turbidity problem (cloudy water with dirt in it)
The sea surface has a layer of biofilm with bacteria and secreted chemicals that gets messed up.
The littoral (shallow) sea floor has bacterial life from the ocean floor, animals, plants seaweed / kelp and all of this gets disturbed by the strong winds and big waves.
read about [Structure and function of the global ocean microbiome](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1261359) to get a bit of the complexity of it.
also [here if you don’t have academic access](https://www.libgen.is/scimag/?q=Structure+and+function+of+the+global+ocean+microbiome)
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