Phytoplankton are important primary producers in coastal marine ecosystems and sensitive indicators of ecosystem change resulting from natural and / or anthropogenic processes. Hilo Bay is subject to forcing from a combination of natural (river flow, long-term climate change) and anthropogenic (nutrient runoff) processes. Dr. Adolph's research will ask the basic question, ‘How do these processes affect phytoplankton in Hilo Bay?’, with the broader goals of improving our understanding of the local food web and aiding the development of improved tools for water quality management. A water quality monitoring buoy will be deployed in Hilo Bay to provide long-term, continuous measurements including phytoplankton biomass. Real-time display of data on the internet will allow directed sampling of ‘events’ such as ephemeral phytoplankton blooms that are otherwise difficult to capture. Buoy monitoring will be accompanied by intermittent (twice monthly) surface mapping of Hilo Bay using a DATAFLOW system that samples water quality parameters and GPS coordinates on 2 second intervals while traveling at 20 knots. These two techniques will provide a continuous record of the temporal and spatial dynamics of Hilo Bay phytoplankton and will serve as the ‘backdrop’ for hypothesis-driven research carried out by students.

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