Coastal marine ecosystems worldwide are increasingly affected by tide alterations and anthropogenic disturbances affecting the water quality and leading to frequent algal blooms. Increased bloom persistence is a serious threat due to the long-lasting impacts on ecological processes and services, such as carbon cycling and sequestration. The exploration of eco-environmental feedback and algal bloom patterns remains challenging and poorly investigated, mostly due to the paucity of data and lack of model-free approaches to infer universal bloom dynamics. Florida Bay, taken as an epitome for biodiversity and blooms, has long experienced algal blooms in its central and western regions, and, in 2006, an unprecedented bloom occurred in the eastern habitats rich in corals and vulnerable habitats. With global aims, we analyze the occurrence of blooms in Florida Bay from three perspectives: (1) the spatial spreading networks of chlorophyll-a (CHLa) that pinpoint the source and unbalanced habitats; (2) the fluctuations of water quality factors pre- and post-bloom outbreaks to assess the environmental impacts of ecological imbalances and target the prevention and control of algal blooms; and (3) the topological co-evolution of biogeochemical and spreading networks to quantify ecosystem stability and the likelihood of ecological shifts toward endemic blooms in the long term. Here, we propose the transfer entropy (TE) difference to infer salient dynamical inter actions between the spatial areas and biogeochemical factors (ecosystem connectome) underpinning bloom emergence and spread as well as environmental effects. A Pareto principle, defining the top 20% of areal interactions, is found to identify bloom spreading and the salient eco-environmental interactions of CHLa associated with endemic and epidemic regimes. We quantify the spatial dynamics of algal blooms and, thus, obtain areas in critical need for ecological monitoring and potential bloom control. The results show that algal blooms are increasingly persistent over space with long-term negative effects on water quality factors, in particular, about how blooms affect temperature locally. A dichotomy is reported between spatial ecological corridors of spreading and biogeochemical networks as well as divergence from the optimal eco-organization: randomization of the former due to nutrient overload and temperature increase leads to scale-free CHLa spreading and extreme outbreaks a posteriori. Subsequently, the occurrence of blooms increases bloom persistence, turbidity and salinity with potentially strong ecological effects on highly biodiverse and vulnerable habitats, such as tidal flats, salt-marshes and mangroves. The probabilistic distribution of CHLa is found to be indicative of endemic and epidemic regimes, where the former sets the system to higher energy dissipation, larger instability and lower predictability. Algal blooms are important ecosystem regulators of nutrient cycles; however, chlorophyll-a outbreaks cause vast ecosystem impacts, such as aquatic species mortality and carbon flux alteration due to their effects on water turbidity, nutrient cycling (nitrogen and phosphorus in particular), salinity and temperature. Beyond compromising the local water quality, other socio-ecological services are also compromised at large scales, including carbon sequestration, which affects climate regulation from local to global environments. Yet, ecological assessment models, such as the one presented, inferring bloom regions and their stability to pinpoint risks, are in need of application in aquatic ecosystems, such as subtropical and tropical bays, to assess optimal preventive controls.

Coastal marine ecosystems worldwide, like Florida Bay, are increasingly affected by tide alteration and anthropogenic disturbances which affect water quality imbalance leading to algal blooms. Increased bloom persistence is a serious threat due to the long-lasting impact on processes like carbon cycle and services like species presence. However, exploring eco-environmental feedback patterns of algal blooms remains challenging and poorly investigated, also due to the paucity of data. Florida Bay, taken as an epitome, has long experienced algal blooms in its central and western regions, and in 2006 an unprecedented bloom occurred in the eastern habitats. We analyzed the occurrence of blooms from three perspectives: (1) the spatial spreading networks of chlorophyll-a (CHLa) that pinpoints source and unbalanced habitats; (2) the fluctuations of water quality factors pre- and post-bloom outbreaks to in assess environmental impacts of ecological dysbiosis and target prevention and control of algal of blooms; and (3) the biogeochemical-spreading network topological co-evolution to quantify ecosystemic stability and ecological shift likelihood in long-term. Here, we propose Transfer Entropy (TE) to quantify dynamical interactions between spatial areas and biogeochemical factors (ecosystem connectome) underpinning bloom emergence and spreading, as well as environmental effects; the Pareto principle is defined for identifying the salient eco-environmental interactions of CHLa. We quantified the spatial dynamics of algal blooms, and thus obtained areas in need for ecological monitoring and potential bloom control. Results show that algal blooms are increasingly persistent over space with long-term negative effects on water quality factor. A dichotomy is reported between spatial ecological corridors of spreading and biogeochemical networks as well as divergence from the optimal eco-organization: randomization of the former due to nutrients' overload and temperature increase leads to scale-free CHLa spreading and extreme outbreaks a posteriori. Subsequently this increases bloom persistence, turbidity and salinity with potentially strong ecological effects on highly biodiverse and vulnerable areas such as tidal flats and marshes. Algal blooms are important ecosystem regulators of nutrient cycles; however, beyond limit chlorophyll-a outbreaks cause aquatic species mortality due to their effect on water turbidity, nutrient balance (nitrogen and phosphorus in particular), salinity and temperature. Beyond compromising local environmental quality, socio-ecological services are also compromised at large scales, yet ecological assessment models like the one presented are in need of application in subtropical and tropical bays worldwide.