algaeAs the summer progressed, it was noted that ambient TANconcentrations decreased around the facility. We considered thegrowth and uptake of TAN by sessile algae on the oyster floats andother surfaces at the facility as a possible hypothesis for this change.To assess this hypothesis, algal growth on floats was estimatedon three dates: 7/18/13, 7/25/13, and 8/8/13. All floats at the facilitywere assigned a rating of “clean”, “light cover”, “medium cover”, or “heavy cover” by visual assessment for estimating the attachedalgal biomass. Three representative floats for each assigned valuewere scraped of all attached algae, which was returned to the lab,dried, and analyzed for particulate N. The values determined for therepresentative samples were then used to extrapolate and estimatethe total algal biomass and N held in that biomass at a given time.