There’s a new seaweed in town, a brown, bulbous balloon
befitting the nickname “sea potato.” Its New England debut was spotted by two
University of New Hampshire plant biology graduate students; now researchers
are keeping a close eye on the sea potato’s progress to determine whether there
is cause for alarm.
UNH graduate students Lindsay Green and Hannah Traggis
discovered the rapid southern expansion of Colpomenia peregrina, also known as
sea potato or oyster thief, during a SCUBA diving trip in Kittery, Maine, in
the summer of 2011. “We saw this big brown beach ball,” says Traggis, who
co-authored a study of their findings in the journal Botanica Marina.