Fosters.com interviews Brawley, Kaczor about influx of seaweed washing ashore
Susan Brawley, a professor of plant biology at the University of Maine, and Keri Kaczor, a marine professional with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, were quoted in the Fosters.com article, “Massive influx of seaweed worries officials.” Maine environmental officials, scientists and coastal municipal leaders have recognized an ecological shift along southern coastal beaches and inlets in recent years that has allowed for periodic but massive influxes of seaweed to wash ashore, according to the article. Kaczor, coordinator of the Maine Healthy Beaches program, said the increase in seaweed is “something no one has seen before” and high bacteria counts in the past few months can be traced directly to loose seaweed on the beach. “What we think is happening is that there’s a larger shift occurring in the ecosystem as a whole. This is indicative of coastal imbalance,” she said. Seaweed grows just off the coast and is lightly attached to rocks and gravel, according to the article. “So when there’s any turbidity at all — and it doesn’t take a serious storm — it’s torn from its roots and washed ashore,” Brawley said. She added although definitive studies have yet to be conducted on increasing seaweed along the Maine coast, “it is clear that warming ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Maine play a factor.”