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2015 Bloom Season

The Alexandrium bloom was lacking in the western Gulf of Maine during the 2015 bloom season. Both ESPdon and ESPdennis showed about 100 cells/L as a background condition, which agreed with the lack of shellfish toxicity observed at the coastline. In contrast, in the eastern Gulf, ESPjake was deployed 10nm south of Bar Harbor and showed significant spikes in the population in the offshore coastal current that were corroborated by one CTD survey in the area. At the shoreline, very little shellfish toxicity was observed and the shellfish stayed open to harvest. The offshore bloom detected by ESPjake was likely transported from areas further east along the Maine coast and transported offshore with the Maine coastal current system since shellfish stations near Cobscook Bay, Maine were showing significant toxicity while the stations further west did not detect significant toxicity. Furthermore, some cells within the eastern Maine coastal population were apparently reaching the offshore mahogany clam population located off Jonesport in about 100m depth as low level shellfish toxicity was observed by ME DMR.

2015 Status Reports