Most vexing is the fact that these blooms are dominated by cyanobacteria, specifically Synechococcus elongatus . There are significant differences in physiology between cyanobacteria and algae which may explain their dominance.
Cyanobacteria have a much higher cell-specific production of alkaline phosphatase than do algae.
Alkaline phosphatase is an enzyme which cleaves organic P making it available for cellular uptake. This enhanced enzyme capacity gives cyanobacteria an advantage over algae under P limited conditions in the presence of labile organic matter. These are the very conditions which are commonly found in central Florida Bay. We propose a two tiered approach to elucidating a mechanism for cyanobacterial bloom development. The first is to determine the relative contribution of bacteria to the microbial community.