SMITH, F. G. WALTON. 



1949. Probable fundamental causes of red 

 tide off the west coast of Florida. 

 Quart. J. Fla. Acad. Sci. 11(1): 1-6. 



The theory is advanced that the red- 

 tide blooms must depend upon unusual 

 amounts of phosphorus. The origin of 

 such phosphorus could be deposits in 

 river drainages or offshore deposits 

 but the manner of dispersal remains 

 a nnystery deserving investigation, 



SMITH, F. G. WALTON. 



1954. Emergency report on the Florida red 

 tide, January 1954. Univ. Miami, Mar. 

 Lab., Rep. to Fla. State Bd. Conserv., 

 Tech. Rep. 54-2, 4 p. 



This report sumnnarizes the status of 

 red-tide research by the Marine Labo- 

 ratory as of January 1954. It names 

 Gymnodinium brevis as the causative 

 organism of the Florida red tide, aind 

 says that red tide occurs sporadically; 

 damage to commercial fisheries in a 

 bad red-tide year exceeds $1 million; 

 Gymnodinium brevis releases fish- 

 killing poisons into the water; phos- 

 phorus compounds are necessary for 

 plamkton growth; other factors besides 

 phosphorus are necessary for the red 

 tide; attempts to establish correlations 

 with meteorological phenomena were 

 unsuccessful; and laboratory culturing 

 of Gymnodinium provided information 

 on special nutrient requirements. 



The author believed that destruction 

 of the bloom serves little purpose sind 

 that the only solution is the prevention 

 of bloon-iing. 



A 2-year program at a cost of $72,000 

 per year is outlined to ensure success- 

 ful prediction, prevention, and control 

 of red-tide blooms. This program en- 

 tails: 



"(a) Full-time year-round oceano- 

 graphic investigation of the chemical 

 cuid physical changes of the West Coast 

 waters. 



"(b) Multiple statistical correlation 

 of outbreaks with meteorological and 

 other ambient phenomena. 



"(c) Tropistic and nutritional labora- 

 tory studies of the causative orga- 

 nism." [p. 4.] 



The author stated that the greatest 

 success will be obtained by providing 

 adequate funds which "should be con- 

 centrated in one locality or organiza- 

 tion, equipped with proper laboratory 

 facilities and ocecinographic vessels, 

 and with personnel experienced in the 

 Red Tide problem." [p. 4.] 



SMITH, F. G. WALTON. 



1957. Mystery of the red tide. Smithsonian 

 Inst., Annu. Rep. for 1957:371-380. 



This is a semipopular article without 

 documentation, apparently largely a re- 

 print from Sea Frontiers 3(1):21-31. 

 Some of the illustrations appeared in 

 Galtsoff (1949). 



On page 373 it mentions "as many 

 as 60,000,000 individual cells to the 

 pint of water" but we are sure this 

 is merely an error in transposing a 

 liter into an English equivalent. 



". . . Since 1947 red tide seemed to 

 have disappeared and there was no way 

 of telling whether it might return in 

 1 year or 10 years. ... [p. 376.] 



"These expectations were partly 

 realized in 1952 when a fresh but minor 

 outbreak occurred. About the middle of 

 September 1953 further red tide was 

 reported and this continued at inter- 

 vals throughout the winter and in the 

 spring and summer of 1954. The new 

 alarms brought special funds to aid 

 research at Miami and increased fed- 

 eral activity. The State of Florida 

 made a wise move by setting up a Red- 

 Tide Committee in order to coordinate 

 research activities. . . . 



"Materials are needed for the growth 

 of 'Jim brevis' and the suspicion that 

 the brackish bay waters contained sonne 

 essential part of these materials re- 

 ceived new attention as the result of 

 work carried out by the Haskins Lab- 

 oratory in New York. For the first 

 time the red-tide type of organism was 

 kept alive in the laboratory in a pure 

 culture, uncontaminated by bacteria or 

 other organisms, . . ." [p. 377.] (Re- 

 viewers' note: These were dinoflagel- 

 lates other than G. breve, which was 

 first cultured in a pure state at Galves- 

 ton by the Fish and Wildlife Service.) 



". . . after taking meteorological fig- 

 ures for 26 past years and performing 

 numerous calculations with different 

 combinations of the data, a formula 

 emerged which worked. The weather 

 information for any year was placed 

 into the formula. When the numerical 

 result fell within a certain narrow 

 range, then a red-tide outbreak hap- 

 pened during the next 12 months. If 

 outside the range, there was no red 

 tide. 



"... In November 1955 the State 

 Board of Conservation in Florida was 

 notified that there was little likelihood 

 of major red-tide outbreaks in the year 



66 



