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. We hypothesize that spatial patterns in primary production of bacteria and phytoplankton in Florida Bay are a product of inorganic N and organic P availability.