Hyperspectral Modeling of Harmful Algal Blooms on the West Florida Shelf

We hypothesized that the ecological interactions on the West Florida Shelf that yield the conditions favorable for a HAB formation were a set of deterministic functions of the supply of multiple limiting nutrients and spectral light to the autotrophic community. Further, these functions could be codified into a quantitative numerical model of phytoplankton competitive interactions, and with the right physical forcing, yield a simulation of K. brevis populations that approximated those measured during an ECOHAB field campaign. To be generally applicable over a wide range of environmental forcing conditions and therefore transportable to areas and times of limited validation data, the quantitative model would have to rely on limited parameter tuning. This research effort has taken a one-dimensional open ocean ecological model of phytoplankton carbon and nitrogen dynamics and developed a two-dimensional coastal ecological model that resolves non-stoichiometric supply and use of multiple limiting nutrients of nitrogen, phosphorous, silica, and iron, as well as the use of spectral light by phytoplankton. By explicitly resolving these functions, this ecological model (EcoSim 2.0) is more generally applicable to a wider range of coastal and open ocean environmental conditions than models using less robust quantifications of light and nutrient dynamics. In addition, the simulation yields predicted IOPs and AOPs, which include water-leaving radiance, tha