Sea Lettuce

Sea lettuce's bright green sheets are familiar on rocky shores worldwide. It thrives on nutrient pollution - where sewage or agricultural runoff enters water, sea lettuce blooms explosively. In Brittany, rotting sea lettuce accumulation has created toxic hydrogen sulfide levels that killed animals and sickened people.

Sea lettuce is an indicator organism that reveals system dysfunction. Its abundance signals nutrient pollution invisible to casual observation. The business parallel is metrics or behaviors that indicate hidden problems - rising customer complaints, employee turnover in specific departments, or 'canary in the coal mine' indicators that something is wrong before the problem becomes obvious.