Postdoc Spotlight: Cultivating Lagoon Life

Abdiel Laureano-Rosario, Ph.D., grew up in Puerto Rico, minutes from the coast which sparked his career path to marine science.

Going to the beach almost every day, he spent most of his childhood in the water, he said. “When you live on an island, the marine life is what really gets your attention,” he said. “[Marine science] became that feeling of getting into the water [and wondering] what’s in there and trying to understand everything that’s going on.”

This interest put him on a path to earn his undergraduate degree in biology more generally at the University of Puerto Rico before narrowing his passion to marine science more than 3,600 miles away at an internship at Western Washington University. During his internship, he spent time in the lab analyzing phytoplankton, microscopic marine algae and ocean acidification on the Pacific Coast, a hands-on lab experience he had never had before, which opened his mind to all the possibilities in marine science. “All that hands-on science got me really excited to continue asking new questions,” he said.

This was his first school-related trip outside Puerto Rico, balancing adulthood, learning English, and adjusting to a completely different climate, which was nearly on the other side of the world from everything he knew. “It was an amazing experience going all the way from Puerto Rico to the Pacific Northwest, it was a huge change,” he said.

Laureano-Rosario’s next move brought him a little closer back to his home, to the University of South Florida, College of Marine Science, where he earned his doctorate degree in marine science, evaluating beach water quality and dengue fever risk factors by satellite remote sensing. He also worked as a data analyst at the Florida Department of Health, where he processed public health surveillance data. At this position he also processed data regarding red tide, a harmful but common algae bloom which takes place on Florida coasts and kills multitudes of marine life, as well as poisoning any humans who ingest fish who have eaten the toxic algae. His combination of experience in data analysis, marine science and health-related issues prepared him for his current role as a postdoctoral fellow at FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute.

“I saw the opening for the Florida Center for Coastal and Human Health and it was perfect, it was data synthesis, lagoons (and) human health,” he said. The Florida Center for Coastal and Human Health is an organization which focuses on leading research to look at the effects and causes of environmental changes, as Florida is on the frontline of coastal environmental change. Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute had sponsored this organization to establish their necessary research into these changes.

Now, as a senior research fellow, Laureano-Rosario works as a data synthesist alongside a large team of interdisciplinary Harbor Branch scientists, researching the effects of harmful algae blooms in the Indian River Lagoon , which produce toxins that can poison marine life, surrounding ecosystems and cause lasting water damage. Imbalanced and damaging algae blooms have cost nearly $1 billion nationally to purify and reverse. “We are looking at toxicity levels, phytoplankton species, and my job is to put together all of this data [and find] the connection,” he said.

By traveling up and down the river, collecting water samples and studying the presence of marine organisms, data are collected which can be synthesized as puzzle pieces creating a larger picture of algae bloom effects and lagoon health. Honed and pinpointed, this research will hopefully lead to the discovery of causes, exact effects, and publish preventative measures to avoid these harmful consequences in the first place. The interdisciplinary team includes scientists, marine researchers, health practitioners and relevant experts.

“Right now, it’s been really amazing just to be able to connect so many different pieces of a puzzle, all of these different fields trying to understand different questions and how all of that connects to understand the ecology and the dynamics of a place such as the Indian River Lagoon,” he said.

“Looking at the toxin concentrations and understanding how they vary in time, we can provide more information, in terms of what’s actually influencing the concentrations,” he said, adding that conceptualizing a complete understanding of the lagoon and its ecology will provide a baseline from which organizations around the world can apply the similarities in the findings from the Indian River Lagoon to their own bodies of water. From there, they can determine the best course of action from the thorough understanding of what has caused an ecological imbalance resulting in an algal bloom, that deprives people of safe drinking water and healthy fish.

Laureano-Rosario said he sees his research as “able to model this toxicity from our algae blooms, [to create] a baseline to be able to [determine the behavior] over the past few years to [figure out] how to actually control the impact of the algae blooms.”

Continuing this research, Laureano-Rosario also advocates for inclusivity and diversity in the academic community which has long excluded minorities, he said. Resources being guarded by opportunity and status is not a new problem, though. A Latino and underrepresented minority himself, he said, “that difference is completely reflected as you move up the academic ladder.” In this struggle, visibility matters. “Seeing people that look like you up there helps with the process [of working towards your academic goals].”