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On every Red Tide, Karen's name
By DAVID BALLINGRUD
© St. Petersburg Times, ST. PETERSBURG -- For the past 38 years, Karen Steidinger has peered through a microscopic window into a "very small, very beautiful" world inhabited by tiny, mysterious, sometimes even dangerous creatures. Steidinger, 62, is a senior scientist with the Florida Marine Research Institute in St. Petersburg and one of the world's foremost experts on dinoflagellates, single-cell sea creatures that somehow manage to be both plant and animal at the same time. Dinoflagellates are "good guys," she says, harmless pinpoints of life at the beginning of the oceanic food chain. There are a few bad guys, however, among them one long known to Gulf Coast Floridians as Gymnodinium breve, or Red Tide. To honor her life work, Steidinger recently was linked permanently to that dinoflagellate that has fouled beaches with dead fish since the 16th century. The little organism that causes the Red Tide has a new name: hers. No more Gymnodinium breve. Karenia brevis is the culprit's new moniker. Last November, a group of Danish scientists announced that the organism had been misidentified from the start. "We have known for several years that Gymnodinium breve was almost certainly incorrectly named, and it became clear recently when we re-examined the organism in detail," said Ojvind Moestrup of Copenhagen University's Botanical Institute. The Red Tide organism was not of the genus Gymnodinium. It was different, unidentified, and it needed a new name. "We are very pleased to name it after Karen Steidinger, in recognition of her many important contributions to dinoflagellate research," Moestrup said. Steidinger said she had no inkling the honor was coming. "I learned about it when they published their work, and someone called me," she said. "I guess if you're trying to surprise someone, you don't tell them what you are going to do. I am very pleased and flattered." "These dinoflagellates are so small," Moestrup said, "that when they were first found and described, the techniques available did not allow the researchers to see the details we can see now." Modern electron microscopes and gene sequencing techniques, he said, are turning up many classification errors. "The biodiversity at this level is proving much bigger than previously thought, and numerous new species are being found." Changes in genus and species names take place more often than one might think, Steidinger noted. "Research constantly reshapes our knowledge. We are forever discovering that things don't fit where they were put." Dinoflagellates come in many shapes. One looks like a human face with a hat, another like a ship's anchor, another like a pointed sombrero. Karenia brevis is heart-shaped, with a filament tail that it shimmies about wildly to propel itself through the water. "I am amazed by the structure in things so small," Steidinger said. "They have a beautiful, hidden architecture." There is a growing sense of urgency in Steidinger's work these days. Retirement is just a couple of years away, "and there are a lot of things to finish up." With more than a dozen other scientists in labs around the world, she hopes to identify and name "two new genera and eight new species." There is a major conference on harmful algae in St. Pete Beach in October of next year to organize. There are her students and classes. And always there is the continuing mystery of Karenia brevis. Red Tide occurs when the tiny organism becomes concentrated in the water and releases a toxin that can kill fish, poison shellfish and irritate human eyes and throats. But why it suddenly concentrates, or "blooms," is still not fully understood. Earlier this summer, Steidinger coauthored an article in the Journal of Geophysical Research that noted an apparent link between Red Tide outbreaks and the presence of iron-rich dust from Africa's Saharan plain. Satellite photos clearly show African dust clouds making the journey westward to the United States on the so-called trade winds. Another possibility, she said, is that the Red Tide organism is in the sand on the gulf bottom in a "resting stage," and becomes activated when disturbed. All this work is aimed toward developing a model for predicting outbreaks, she said. When she retires, in June 2003, Steidinger said, she would like to change gears and write children's books and poetry. "I'm like a child," she said of herself. "I have a childlike love of people and animals, and I hope I never lose that." For now, though, it's back to the lab. "I'd sure like to have some more answers in the next two years," she said.
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