"Paradise Lost, Paradigm Found: Long-Term Monitoring of Water Quality and Coral Reef Communities in the Florida Keys" • Dr. Brian Lapointe "I doubt that anyone can travel the length of the Florida Keys without having communicated to his mind a sense of the uniqueness of this land of sky and water and scattered mangrove covered islands. The atmosphere of the Keys is strongly and peculiarly their own. . . this world of the Keys has no counterpart elsewhere in the United States and indeed few coasts of the earth are like it." --Rachel Carson, The Edge of the Sea About the Lecture - 2006 The Florida Keys is home to the third largest barrier reef in the world and the most extensive coral reef system in the continental United States. This national treasure has been increasingly impacted by human development in recent decades and was declared a "dead zone" by the Pew Oceans Commission in 2003. Dr. Brian Lapointe will discuss the scientific issues surrounding the development of this dead zone, drawing from his two decades of experience researching nutrient pollution and harmful algal blooms in the Keys. Specifically, he will discuss how local sewage pollution originating from the Keys, combined with nitrogen-rich agricultural runoff from the Everglades, have pushed critical nutrient levels over the "tipping point", resulting in catastrophic loss of these once spectacular coral reef communities. About the Speaker Dr. Brian Lapointe was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts, and, at age 9, moved to West Palm Beach. His early experiences diving on South Florida's coral reefs inspired him to pursue a career in marine science, which led him to Boston University where he received his B.A. degree in Biology. He worked as a Research Assistant at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution between 1973 and 1977, when he first came to Harbor Branch to help design and construct the original aquaculture project. He then earned his M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Florida and his Ph.D. from the University of South Florida, both while working for Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in Savannah, Georgia. He became a Harbor Branch employee in 1983 and directs the Marine Nutrient Dynamics program in the Division of Marine Science Dr. Lapointe's early work in the 1980's was based on Big Pine Key and focused on the ecology of pelagic Sargassum, the floating brown seaweed for which the Sargasso Sea was named. He was chief scientist on numerous research expeditions in the western North Atlantic and Caribbean region, which provided opportunities and challenges for research in coral reef ecology. An emphasis of Dr. Lapointe's work has been the role of nutrient pollution in degrading tropical coral reef and seagrass ecosystems. His long-term water quality studies at Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary have provided the global scientific community with the longest low-level nutrient data base for a coral reef anywhere in the world. He is a Fellow of The Explorers Club and considers himself fortunate to be able to help solve practical environmental problems and protect coral reefs and their biodiversity for generations to come.

© 2006, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution