Andrew Robbertz
Author: Sarah Zielinski
Published: February 28, 2014
Article Link: https: //www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/algal-blooms-created-ancient-whale-graveyard
Summary: In 2010, in the barren Atacama Desert of northern Chile, Came across a curious site while expanding a highway through the desert. In the rock were buried the fossils of many whales and other marine mammals. Researchers were able to remove some of the fossils and take 3D scans of others. The scans, which kept the orientation of the bones allowed the researchers to reason the cause of their death. The orientation suggested that the mammals had been washed onto a beach, where they were rapidly buried. They believed they had been washed ashore between 6 and 9 million years ago. They believed they had died to a similar cause to many whales around Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 1987 and 1988. These waled were killed from eating Atlantic mackerel that had been contaminated with a neurotoxin produced by an algal bloom. A high iron runoff from the Andes Mountains often causes an algal bloom on the west coast of South America. On the beach the skeletons would be preserved as there were no wakes crashing on them and no predators to pick them apart.
Relevance: This article connects to our unit on Microbes, and the section that focused on algae. The algae blooms that were caused 9 million years ago, and causing mass deaths is continuing today with the death of the wales off of Cape Cod. The algae that killed the whales produced a neurotoxin that was harmless to the smaller organisms that ate the algae, but because of biomagnification the concentration of the toxin became denser, and was in a high enough concentration to kill the wales. A similar thing is happening today in the Gulf of Mexico. Runoff from farms along the Mississippi river dump into the Gulf of Mexico, causing algal bloom. The algae create a dead zone, where the water is deprived of oxygen. This is killing many species of fish as well as destroying coral reefs.
Showing posts with label Algae Blooms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Algae Blooms. Show all posts
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Northernmost Lake Resurrected Due to Warming
By Kate Andries, National Geographic
October 17 2012
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121017-northernmost-lake-greenland-global-warming-science-environment/
Summary
The world's northernmost lake called Kaffeklubben Sø , situated near the coast of Greenland, was once teeming with a microscopic algae called diatom, which was formed 3500 years ago due to glacial retreats which created numerous small lakes on the plain. However studies show that the population had decreased and diminished over 2400 years ago. Scientist believe that the lake was deeply frozen, cutting off any sunlight from getting on to the water and providing the algae with energy to perform photosynthesis. So the drop in temperatue and the lack of sunlight led to the organisms being killed off. This had been the case since roughly 1920. Around 1960-1970, scientists had found evidence that the diatom population had begun to gradually increase due to summer temperatures increasing as well. Climate change certainly played a role in this case. The diatom population had exploded from 1980 onwards. The layer of ice on the lake which was usually 1 to 2 meters thick had now reduced with summer temperatures rising to 1.6 degrees celsius particularly towards the shore. Scientist were determined to see if the the sudden boost of the diatom population was the result of nitrogen pollution which can cause algae to bloom but that hypothesis was refuted when they found no evidence of pollution. They confirmed that the only reason for this increase in population was because of climate change.
Connection
Connections between this article and what we have learnt so far in biology are that climate change, specifically global warming, can have a huge impact on the living apsects of our ecosystems. The photic zone in ponds and lakes are where most plants and microscopic algae such as phytoplankton and in this particular case, diatom are ideal places where photosynthesis occurs. Since the lake had frozen, the ice had blocked out all means of sunlight from getting to the diatom which killed the species in this lake due to lack of energy. Fortunately, thanks to global warming, the climate in Greenland had started to become warmer especially in the summer, melting the ice mostly towards the shore and allowing photosynthesis back in to help re-populate Kaffeklubben Sø lake with diatoms again. Although the hypothesis was not valid, it was suspected that nitrogen pollution had caused algae to bloom but it was more of a climate- driven change than a nutrient-driven change.
October 17 2012
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121017-northernmost-lake-greenland-global-warming-science-environment/
Summary
The world's northernmost lake called Kaffeklubben Sø , situated near the coast of Greenland, was once teeming with a microscopic algae called diatom, which was formed 3500 years ago due to glacial retreats which created numerous small lakes on the plain. However studies show that the population had decreased and diminished over 2400 years ago. Scientist believe that the lake was deeply frozen, cutting off any sunlight from getting on to the water and providing the algae with energy to perform photosynthesis. So the drop in temperatue and the lack of sunlight led to the organisms being killed off. This had been the case since roughly 1920. Around 1960-1970, scientists had found evidence that the diatom population had begun to gradually increase due to summer temperatures increasing as well. Climate change certainly played a role in this case. The diatom population had exploded from 1980 onwards. The layer of ice on the lake which was usually 1 to 2 meters thick had now reduced with summer temperatures rising to 1.6 degrees celsius particularly towards the shore. Scientist were determined to see if the the sudden boost of the diatom population was the result of nitrogen pollution which can cause algae to bloom but that hypothesis was refuted when they found no evidence of pollution. They confirmed that the only reason for this increase in population was because of climate change.
Connection
Connections between this article and what we have learnt so far in biology are that climate change, specifically global warming, can have a huge impact on the living apsects of our ecosystems. The photic zone in ponds and lakes are where most plants and microscopic algae such as phytoplankton and in this particular case, diatom are ideal places where photosynthesis occurs. Since the lake had frozen, the ice had blocked out all means of sunlight from getting to the diatom which killed the species in this lake due to lack of energy. Fortunately, thanks to global warming, the climate in Greenland had started to become warmer especially in the summer, melting the ice mostly towards the shore and allowing photosynthesis back in to help re-populate Kaffeklubben Sø lake with diatoms again. Although the hypothesis was not valid, it was suspected that nitrogen pollution had caused algae to bloom but it was more of a climate- driven change than a nutrient-driven change.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Huge Algae Bloom off Canada Triggered by Company's 'Fertilization' Experiment
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In an effort to increase salmon population, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. dumped about 100 tons of iron ore into the Northern Pacific Ocean. This caused a massive algae bloom covering 3,800 square miles of ocean off the coast of British Columbia, off of which the salmon could feed. The Haida people, a tribe in British Columbia, endorsed the dumping in order to increase the salmon populations that they depend on. Planktos, a company wishing to experiment with iron dumping and algae blooms in order to reduce carbon in the atmosphere, also supported the effort. Depositing such high amounts of foreign substances into the ocean does not only damage the ecosystem, but also goes against international resolutions. This has created great controversy about ocean manipulation, with some scientists predicting effects like oxygen depletion in water and damaging of food webs.
This
article is relevant to our unit on ecology, and reflects the effect of fertilizers
on an ecosystem. When nutrients such as iron become available in aquatic
ecosystems in unusually high amounts, unsuppressed populations of algae skyrocket
as the carrying capacity of the ecosystem increases. The algae crowd out competitors and other
species such as fish, and suck nutrients such as oxygen out of the water. The
high concentration of algae at the surface also blocks light from reaching
lower photic zone. As species begin to disappear from the area, the entire
food web gets disrupted.
(Images from: http://inhabitat.com/rogue-geoengineering-experiment-creates-massive-algae-bloom-in-pacific-ocean/)
Miguel Llanos, NBC News
October 16, 2012
Summary
In an effort to increase salmon population, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. dumped about 100 tons of iron ore into the Northern Pacific Ocean. This caused a massive algae bloom covering 3,800 square miles of ocean off the coast of British Columbia, off of which the salmon could feed. The Haida people, a tribe in British Columbia, endorsed the dumping in order to increase the salmon populations that they depend on. Planktos, a company wishing to experiment with iron dumping and algae blooms in order to reduce carbon in the atmosphere, also supported the effort. Depositing such high amounts of foreign substances into the ocean does not only damage the ecosystem, but also goes against international resolutions. This has created great controversy about ocean manipulation, with some scientists predicting effects like oxygen depletion in water and damaging of food webs.
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| Chlorophyll concentration before the deposit. |
Connection
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| Chlorophyll concentration after the deposit. |
(Images from: http://inhabitat.com/rogue-geoengineering-experiment-creates-massive-algae-bloom-in-pacific-ocean/)
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