Nualgi - Diatom Algae for Bio-remediation and Biodiesel

Vero Beach - Algal bloom

2012-01-27T19:02:00.000-08:00

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2012/jan/26/orca-maps-pollution-in-lagoon-between-vero-spans/

ORCA maps pollution in lagoon between Vero bridge spans
By J.G. Wallace
Posted January 26, 2012 at 5:34 p.m.

VERO BEACH — A Fort Pierce-based environmental research group is shining light — bioluminescence, to be precise — on the problem of pollution in the Indian River Lagoon.

Scientists at Ocean Research and Conservation Association, aka ORCA, have started with a pilot program to map pollution in a 1-square-mile area of the lagoon between the 17th Street Bridge and the Barber Bridge in Vero Beach, thanks to a grant from Impact 100 of Indian River County, a women's philanthropic organization.

To find the pollution, scoop up muck from the bottom of the lagoon.

"A lot of people don't realize how much pollution is in sediment," said Edith "Edie" Widder, ORCA's president and senior scientist. "Water moves, and so do the pollutants in it, but sediment stays put, and so do the pollutants in it."

Using a process known as Fast Assessment of Sediment Toxicity technology, Widder mixes the muck with bioluminescent bacteria, marine organisms that emit natural light. She then uses a photometer to see how much and how quickly the light dims as the chemicals kill the bacteria.

The quicker and dimmer, the more pollution.

Widder also looks for nutrients including nitrogen and phosphorus, which she said "aren't technically toxins, but they do plenty of damage" because they stimulate algae growth. Too much algae in the water can lower oxygen levels and kill a wide range of marine creatures. Treasure Coast residents don't have to think back very far to remember the green slime of algal blooms in 2005.

In the Vero Beach study area, Widder's team found the highest levels of nitrogen and phosphates in densely populated residential areas, indicating the pollutants found their way into the lagoon as runoff from overfertilized lawns.

The association found the lowest levels of nitrogen and phosphates directly adjacent to the Vero Beach Country Club, which Widder said correlates to the club's recent transition to using an organic fertilizer in smaller and more controlled applications.

"Golf courses usually get vilified for damaging the environment," Widder said, "but in this case they're the good guys."

Shane Wright, course superintendent at the country club, said his staff is "pretty judicious about what we do. Our course looks good and plays good, and I feel like we have it dialed in now in terms of the environmental practices."

Widder said Treasure Coast homeowners should follow the country club's example. Noting that her teams found grass clippings floating throughout the entire sample area, she said residents who live on the water and even blocks away should be aware that if they wash or blow clippings into storm sewers, fertilizers and chemicals will make their way into the marine ecosystem.

She said bagging, mulching or composting clippings is a better choice for the environment.

"A lot of the solutions are pretty simple," Widder said.

Widder said local ordinances limiting the use of fertilizers, especially during the rainy season, also help keep pollutants out of the lagoon.

"Those laws need to be in place all along the Indian River Lagoon," she said.

Widder also hopes ORCA's pollution mapping project can be in place throughout the lagoon and that one day the maps can be included on Google Earth.

"People need to know how unique the lagoon is," Widder said, "how the water used to run gin-clear and how there used to be massive amounts of fish in the water. With the murky water we have now, it's not the ecosystem it used to be."

Great Lakes: Quagga mussels -spit out Microcystis

2012-01-17T17:39:00.000-08:00

Invasion of the Great Lakes: Quagga mussels least known, most dangerous invader

Algal blooms return

Many areas of the Great Lakes have seen a return of blooms of the toxic blue-green alga Microcystis.

"The quagga mussels are filtering out particles in the water, but not Microcystis, which they spit out," said Nalepa. "That leaves Microcystis with fewer competitors for nutrients."

Without the brake of competition, the Microcystis algae proliferate.

Lake Erie Algae, Ice, Make a Nice Mix in Winter

2012-01-11T18:44:00.000-08:00

http://eponline.com/articles/2012/01/11/lake-erie-algae-ice-make-a-nice-mix-in-winter.aspx

Lake Erie Algae, Ice, Make a Nice Mix in Winter
...

Results of the study, "Diatoms abound in ice-covered Lake Erie: An investigation of offshore winter limnology in Lake Erie over the period 2007 to 2010," are reported by Michael Twiss, Mike McKay, Rick Bourbonniere, George Bullerjahn, Hunter Carrick, Ralph Smith, Jennifer Winter, Nigel D’souza, Paula Furey, Aubrey Lashaway, Matt Saxton and Steve Wilhelm in Volume 38, No. 1, of the Journal of Great Lakes Research, published by Elsevier, 2011.

...

Diatom

2012-01-05T23:00:00.000-08:00

http://www.stormbefore.com/diatoms.htm

Diatom facts:

Diatoms photosynthesize. They are categorized as either protists or chromists.
They provide a significant amount of the world's oxygen supply (some say 35%).
There are over a hundred thousand species identified.
Diatoms live anywhere there is water and light, including lakes, streams, estuaries, oceans, puddles and wet rocks or soil.
That brown scum you see on the rocks in the stream is probably diatoms.
Diatomaceous earth is sometimes used in gardening as a pest control.
For more diatom info, check out the Diatom Home Page.

Diatoms are the most important group of photosynthetic eukaryotes

2012-01-05T22:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.cns.fr/spip/Phaeodactylum-tricornutum,463.html

Diatoms are the most important group of photosynthetic eukaryotes

The oceans of our planet are Earth’s largest ecosystem. About 50% of the primary productivity is attributable to them. The most important photosynthetic eukaryotes are the diatoms; they contribute about 40% of the primary marine production, and thus produce almost 1/4 of the oxygen we breathe. Although they form only a small part of the photosynthetic biomass, in some regions of the ocean, they can fix the same amount of carbon per day as a forest of terrestrial plants.

Lakes and Green House Gases

2012-01-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

http://www.lakescientist.com/learn-about-lakes/lakes-climate-change/lakes-and-greenhouse-gases.html

Greenhouse Gases
By Kevin Rose | Miami University

Figure 1: Greenhouse gases, especially CO2, are increasing in the atmosphere due to human activities. Natural sources of greenhouse gases include lakes and other freshwater resources.
Gases that trap heat in the atmosphere are known as greenhouse gases. The major greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O)1. At present, atmospheric CO2 is nearly 35% higher than preindustrial levels and is increasing1. Although these gases are released from natural activity, human activity is responsible for the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. According to both the European Environment Agency and the United States Environmental Protection Agency, CO2 emissions account for the largest share of total greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to 80-85% of total emissions. Fossil fuel combustion used for transportation and electricity generation are the main source of CO2 emissions, contributing to more than 50% of total emissions.

Natural sources of greenhouse gases include lakes and other freshwaters such as rivers, streams, ponds, and wetlands as well as terrestrial landscapes such as forests and fields. Lakes are active, changing, and important regulators of (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O).

Carbon Dioxide

Figure 2: Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is an important greenhouse gas, and most lakes act as net sources of CO2, releasing it into the atmosphere. Lakes also bury large amounts of carbon in their sediments, over three times more than the world’s oceans.
Lakes play a much greater role in global carbon cycling than their area would otherwise predict. While lakes make up less than 2% of Earth’s surface area, they bury over three times more carbon in their sediments than all of the world’s oceans combined2. This means on a per area basis lakes bury over 100 times more carbon than the oceans. Small lakes that contain large amounts of algae tend to bury the most carbon; thus, the small drainage ponds, farm ponds, and recreational lakes around the world are important sites for carbon cycling and understanding global climate change3.

Despite the fact lakes bury huge amounts of carbon, they also tend to release more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than they absorb, making them net sources of greenhouse gases. Most of the world’s lakes are supersaturated in CO2 and consequently release some of it to the atmosphere4. In fact, lakes and other freshwaters release almost as much CO2 as all the world’s oceans. This occurs because lakes generally drain large landscapes and the carbon from forests, fields, and lawns becomes concentrated in lakes where it can be buried or released into the atmosphere. Research studies show that the CO2 released from lakes comes from organism respiration — the breathing of bacteria, algae, zooplankton, fish, and other species5.

Methane
While methane is less common than CO2, it is a highly potent greenhouse gas. It has about 20 times more warming potential than CO2. Lakes contribute about 10% of total natural methane emissions, and they produce more methane than the oceans6. Many lakes and other freshwaters produce methane during warm summer conditions or when oxygen levels underwater drop. Most methane is produced in lake sediments when oxygen is no longer present due to different communities of bacteria that grow in environments without oxygen. In some lakes, bubbles can be seen rising from sediments; these bubbles are often methane produced by bacteria in oxygen deprived sediments6. Shallow areas around the shores of warm lakes are hot spots for methane production. Overall, lakes are important sites for carbon dioxide and methane production and release.

Nitrous Oxide
Lakes and other freshwater resources are also sources of nitrous oxide (N2O) cycling, another potent greenhouse gas that is produced in warm lakes by bacteria and other microbes. Within lakes, shallow sediments contribute most to N2O emissions7, while organisms in deep open waters may consume more N2O than they release. Lake shape may be an important predictor of N2O release, as shallow lakes with expansive shorelines may release more N2O than they produce compared with round deep lakes.

Is Hydroelectric Power a “Green” Energy Source?
Lakes and reservoirs are often built or used to generate power. In fact, so much water is retained behind dams that global sea level rise has been reduced by about 0.02 inches (0.55 mm) per year over the past 50 years8. Because fossil fuels are not used to produce hydroelectric power, lakes and reservoirs are often thought of as “green” energy sources. But lakes and reservoirs release potent greenhouse gases — particularly carbon dioxide and methane — into the atmosphere. If a hydroelectric dam releases enormous volumes of greenhouse gases, is it a “green” energy source?

Figure 5: The Three Gorges Dam in China is the world’s largest producer of hydroelectric power. Lakes and reservoirs emit greenhouse gases, and studies have questioned whether hydroelectric is truly a “green” energy source.
Greenhouse gas emissions from freshwater lakes and reservoirs and their contribution to the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are at the heart of a worldwide debate concerning the electricity generating sector9. Hydropower represents about 20% of the world’s electricity generation capacity and on average emits 35 to 70 times less greenhouse gases per unit power generated than thermal power plants10. When reservoirs are first built for power generation, soils, plants, and trees are flooded. The decay of this plant and soil material can contribute to large emissions of CO2 and CH4 during the first few years after reservoir construction11. Studies show that 3-10 times more greenhouse gases are produced by newly formed reservoirs than from natural lakes of the same size in the first 2-5 years after a reservoir is constructed12.

Beyond the initial release of greenhouse gases, lakes and reservoirs also continue to release carbon dioxide and methane as they produce power. As methane and carbon dioxide enriched water passes through turbines, hydrostatic pressure drops and a large portion of the gas rapidly escapes to the atmosphere. In some regions, such as tropical reservoirs where methane production can be high, reservoirs can release more greenhouse gases than fossil fuel alternatives13.

While lakes and reservoirs used to generate hydroelectric power can release greenhouse gases, they typically release far smaller amounts than traditional fossil fuel based power plants. Hydroelectric is not a perfectly “green” energy source, but it is often much more environmentally friendly than alternative choices and can be part of an alternative energy solutions plan.

Diatom Slide show

2011-12-31T20:51:00.000-08:00

An excellent slide show of Diatom photos by Dr David A Menton

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v5/n4/diatoms-slideshow

Water Pollution due to farming - Ohio

2011-12-29T21:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.farmanddairy.com/news/top-farm-stories-of-2011/32965.html

Water quality issues
Nutrient and sediment loading into Ohio’s lakes and streams has been an issue for 40 or more years, and farmers’ conservation efforts have made a substantial improvement.

But, in the past year or two, it’s become increasingly clear more efforts are needed to tackle a slightly different issue: dissolved reactive phosphorous. Unlike other forms of phosphorous, the dissolved form is considered 100 percent available to unwanted plant growth — namely the harmful algal blooms.

Throughout the first part of the year, state officials put together a statewide task force to address what farmers should do. The group became known as the Agricultural Nutrients and Water Quality Work Group, and is comprised of staff from Ohio Department of Agriculture, the department of natural resources and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

Dozens of farmers and farm agencies are helping the group form new recommendations for Ohio, to help improve water quality and reduce dissolved phosphorous levels.

By the close of the year, water quality was on the minds of grain and livestock farmers across the state.

The Aerobic Difference

2011-12-21T18:36:00.000-08:00

http://www.biofeedsolutions.com/Aerobic.html

The Aerobic Difference

For both Soil and Water Systems!

For years, turf managers and growers have utilized both chemical and mechanical means to incorporate oxygen into their soils. Many realize that the type biological activity found in their soils is vital to maintaining healthy growth and quality turf grass. Soil scientists agree that this is true. Disease factors found in both plants and water primarily stem from the lack of oxygen. Soils lacking adequate oxygen are known as anaerobic while soils that have adequate oxygen on a consistent basis are referred to as aerobic. Therefore, turf managers often mechanically aerate their soils, using heavy equipment that literally pokes holes into the soil allowing air to penetrate, but this practice is costly and damages the turf.

Delivering oxygen to the root zone is necessary as conditions such as black layer often plague even the best of golf greens and cause putrid odors that resembles rotten eggs. This odor is caused by the over growth or proliferation of anaerobic bacteria such as desulfovibrio and desulfotomatuculum bacteria and/or various blue-green algae or cyanobacteria which produce mucilage that blocks both air and water movement in sandy and clay soils and acts as an energy source for anaerobic bacteria. It is the by-products of these various bacteria and the subsequent toxic soil conditions that occur that have a negative impact on the growth of roots and these have also been found to harbor disease-causing bacteria.

Limnology -Lake Horowhenua

2011-12-20T18:47:00.000-08:00

Dr Maxx Gibbs

http://www.envirolink.govt.nz/PageFiles/719/932-HZLC80%20Lake%20Horowhenua%20review%20assessment%20of%20opportunities%20to%20address%20water%20quality%20issues%20in%20Lake%20Horowhenua.pdf

Pg 24

3 Limnology

Nutrients and sediments from the land accumulate in lakes and are stored in the lake sediments as a legacy from past land-use practices. Nitrogen (N) is continously mineralised and released from the sediment in the form of ammonium (NH4-N) which can be converted to nitrate (NO3-N) by nitrifying bacteria or sebsequently to nitrogen gas (N2) by denitrigying bacteria. The N2 gas is lost from the lake and the amount of N in the lake gradually reduces. Phosphorus (P) is mineralised to phosphate in the sediment but is retained in the sediment bound to iron and manganese oxides while the overlying lake wter contains oxygen (aerobic conditions). The bound P can be released from the sediments in the form of dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) when dissolved oxygen concentrations in the lake fall to zero anoxic. This consumption of oxygen for decomposition is referred to as sediment oxygen demand.

The N and P released from the sediment are readily used by algae for growth. If there is a surplus of N ( i.e., P - limitation to algal growth ), the dominant algal species will most likely be diatoms and green algae. If there is a surplus of P ( N - limitation to algal growth ), the dominant algal species will most likely be cyanobacteria ( blue-green algae ) which can use (fix) atmospheric nitrogen for growth. When the algae die they return the N and P in their cells to the sediment where it can be recycled again, augmenting the new N and P entering the lake from the catchment.

Nutrients released from the lake sediments are referred to as the internal nutrient load while nutrients entering the lake from the catchment via streams, ground water and direct discharge are external loads.

Arctic Methane Emergency Group

2011-12-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

Arctic Methane Emergency Group

http://www.arctic-methane-emergency-group.org/#/about/4558060537

Diatoms are acknowledged as a possible solution to Arctic Methane emissions.

Battelle Interim Report on GLSM

2011-12-18T20:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.lakeimprovement.com/battelle-report-2011

Battelle Report Gives Recommendations to Grand Lake St. Marys Restoration Commission
Thu, 11/03/2011

Left to right: Henry Pate, Tom Gulbransen, John McArdle, Harry Stone

Battelle presented an interim report to the Grand Lake St. Marys Restoration Committee during a recent meeting at WSU Lake Campus after reviewing nearly 75 prospective vendor proposals. Each proposal included potential lake restoration technologies to address algal blooms that have occurred in Grand Lake St. Marys.

Submissions were analyzed by type of merit, their form and purpose including:

Controlling Phosphorus loading (internal and external)
Promising proposals from Ag Solutions Group
Biomanipulation
Algaecides
The screening process allowed a closer look at which vendors should be engaged in a more detailed evaluation. From this evaluation, Battelle recommended an ensemble of solutions that could be considered to be pursued locally both in the lake and in the surrounding watershed. Each of the recommended solutions follows one or more of the eight action items recommended in the Grand Lake St. Marys Restoration Strategic Plan.

The Battelle recommendation plan was made possible through partnership with the Governor’s office, The Western Ohio Educational Foundation, Wright State, all four agencies including Natural Resources, Agriculture, Health, and Environmental Protection. The report represents potential short-term and long-term strategies.

One of several of the recommendations, to best meet our short term goals: Lake-wide alum treatment for spring 2012, which is planned with the help of the State of Ohio.

As more plans are completed they will be made available to the public. One of these plans calls for help from residents along the many channels around the lake. Watch for further information on this exciting plan.

A copy of this report will be made available on the LIA website: www.lakeimprovement.com

The primary goal of the Grand Lake Restoration Commission is to restore the health of the lake to ensure that the lake is functional for tourism use this year and every year thereafter. To help address this need, community leaders and volunteers came together in December 2009 to form the Grand Lake St. Marys Restoration Commission – a pioneering initiative dedicated to fostering the regional cooperation and resources needed for the environmental renewal and sustainability to the lake. Our initial efforts primarily focused on identifying the proven scientific strategies and technological solutions able to solve our environmental crisis.

Together, these partner agencies have identified various watershed and in/near-lake alternative best management practices (BMPs) that could be used to help meet the qualitative and quantitative restoration goals for Grand Lake St. Marys and its surrounding communities. Success of these partnerships is driven by the unique strengths of the collaborators wishing to identify new technologies and target entrepreneurial funding to bring them to market.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT

http://www.lakeimprovement.com/sites/default/files/battelle-glsm-report-2011.pdf

Arctic Methane

2011-12-15T17:08:00.000-08:00

A short video clip of US Energy Secretary Dr. Chu on the subject of permafrost
(methane)feedback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHqKxWvcBdg

Methane bubbling up -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM5WPl69Z18&feature=related

Methane from lakes -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa3M4ou3kvw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YegdEOSQotE&feature=related

Arctic Methane Yahoo Group -
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/arctic-methane/

Diatom and Fish

2011-12-15T16:48:00.000-08:00

A few papers on Diatoms and Fish

The Dependence of the Fishes on the Diatoms
Albert Mann.
Ecology, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Apr., 1921), pp. 79-83
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1928919

“No diatoms, no hake”

"There is no better illustration in science of the practical value of ecology than is afforded by the diatoms. The economic importance they are now [1921] seen to have might have been understood fifty years earlier [i.e, 1871] and some use might have been made of their value during that period of time, if the inter-relation of these remarkable plants with other forms of aquatic life had been prominent in the minds of investigators. As it is, they remained for many years little more than the playthings of microscopists, prized and wondered over because of their astonishing beauty, collected at great expense by enthusiastic amateurs, and illustrated in costly books, which may be searched through in vain for any hint of their worth outside of that belonging to their symmetry of form and striking loveliness of design."

[ for the past 90 / 140 years Diatoms have been badly neglected, we are trying to remedy the situation.]

http://www.princeton.edu/~mhiscock/BarberHiscock2006.pdf
A rising tide lifts all phytoplankton: Growth response of other phytoplankton taxa in diatom-dominated blooms.
R. T. Barber and M. R. Hiscock

"4. Diatom Response

It has commanded much attention because of the well-established relationship between diatom blooms and fish production [Iverson, 1990], which led Bostwick Ketchum to revise Isaiah 40:6 this way,

‘‘All fish is diatom.’’

[Isaiah 40:6 - A voice says, "Cry out." And I said, "What shall I cry?"
"All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.]

http://bayviewcompass.com/archives/960
Flood of ‘08 served up feast for fish

“Compared to other phytoplankton, diatoms are like juicy steaks,” said Aguilar, who has been studying Lake Michigan’s diatoms and other phytoplankton for over a decade.

http://www.smsi.org/publications/mn4803-5.shtml
One may almost say no diatoms , no oysters. Some curious observations have been made in this respect. Mr. Bartholomew reports that the Menhaden (a surface feeding fish of the herring family) is quite a consumer of diatoms. He writes as follows: "You will probably be astonished to know that a 200 millimeter beaker of Menhaden intestines will frequently yield, after cleaning 25 millimeter of diatoms. Years ago, I thought I was a collector but my hat is off to the Menhaden."

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt9c6006rh;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=d0e312&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=calisphere

Sardines above 100 mm. feed primarily on diatoms, though copepods are at times prevalent. Among the adult sardines of 200 mm. or longer the food is mainly diatoms, and occasionally dinoflagellates or schizopods occur in major numbers.

http://www.fbbva.es/TLFU/dat/02SMETACEKSEPARATA.pdf
Dr Victor Smetacek, he was the Chief Scientific Officer of LOHAFEX, the 13th Iron Fertilization experiment conducted in 2009

Diatoms - Krill - Whales; "the food chain of the giants."

Lipids - Copepods

2011-12-15T00:04:00.000-08:00

http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=1121

NEWS

Copepods eat their own weight belts

14 December 2011, by Tom Marshall

Scientists have solved the mystery of how tiny marine crustaceans called copepods regulate the rhythms of their life-cycle.

....

"It turns out that it's all about oil. The copepods have specialised fat stores that act like weight belts, letting the copepods maintain their depth easily and avoid attracting predators' attention with unnecessary movements. Building up enough fat reserves seems to be an essential step before diapause can begin - these reserves automatically trigger diapause once they reach a threshold level."

...

"Pond explains that the unsaturated fats that are crucial for buoyancy control are found mostly in plankton algae known as diatoms, so having these to feed on is crucial for copepods' ability to diapause successfully. He now plans to look at whether similar mechanisms help control the movements of other animal plankton, such as krill."

Florida Slime Crime Tracker

2011-12-04T06:30:00.000-08:00

Interesting website about Algal blooms in Florida

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&mpa=0&ctz=300&mpf=0&vps=15&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=211539618625491573613.0004b1b520a27d0c8cb86

Florida Slime Crime Tracker

Florida's waterways are plagued by slime caused by fertilizer, sewage and animal manure. Click blue icons on the map, or on the list below, to view photographs of the muck.

The brackets below indicate the counties in which the slimed waterbody resides.

The photos were contributed by numerous clean water activists and advocacy organizations from across Florida and compiled into map form by the Sierra Club.

Have a photo to add? Comments? Want to help fight slime crime? Contact us at slimecrimes@gmail.com

Biogeochemical significance of silicon in the world oceans

2011-12-01T17:58:00.000-08:00

http://www.nio.org/index/option/com_newsdisplay/task/view/tid/4/sid/23/nid/33

Biogeochemical significance of silicon in the world oceans

Diatoms are the major autotrophic communities in the euphotic zone in most regions of the world oceans. One of the most essential nutrients for frustule formation (cell wall or, theca) in the diatoms is silicate (SiO3). Higher the availability of SiO3 faster and better is the growth of diatoms. While emphasizing on the pivotal role of Si in the biology of diatoms and radiolarians in the oceanic realms, Dr Ittekkot, in his seminar at NIO, cautioned that anthropogenic activities, in particular construction of dams on major rivers in the world, are causing reduced Si discharges into the oceans and affecting the growth and abundance of diatoms over there. Based on the available literature on diatom composition, abundance and pre- and post-obstructions of the reverine discharges he indicated that the diatoms are adversely affected and giving alarming signals of depleting phytoplankton assemblages post-obstruction. Evidences point to catastrophic effects at least in the ocean-margins on diatoms, the major, innocuous autotrophs in the oceans. With Si depletion but nitrate and phosphate in abundance, the dinoflagellates - many species of which are toxic to many marine and terrestrial life forms - bloom and bring in unwanted changes in the marine ecosystem including mass mortalities of aquatic fauna and reduced fish harvests. He also highlighted the role of Si in regulating C fluxes [higher C fluxes when Si is adequately available for phytoplankton] and suggested that a great deal of new science needs to be done to address the consequences of reduced Si reaching the oceans due to dam constructions world over. Dr Ittekkot also brought out that 2 micromoles of SiO3 in the euphotic zone is adequate for the normal growth and activities of diatoms. While the deep-sea SiO3 concentrations are much higher, the time taken to reach up in the surface layers is very long and, often may not make it to the surface layers owing to physical barriers such as upper layer stratification. He summed up the seminar by appealing scientific community to address the Si issue from both the proposed river basin connectivity and the long term consequences of ocean productivity and biogeochemistry in an altered Si cycling scenario. Dr Venu Ittekkot works at ZMT, Bremen, Germany. (Reported by: N. Ramaiah)

MARINE PLANKTON DIATOMS OF THE WEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA

2011-11-24T23:45:00.000-08:00

http://escholarship.org/uc/item/922945w8

MARINE PLANKTON DIATOMS OF THE WEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA
BY EASTER E. CUPP

Volume 5, No.1, pp. 1 - 238,
Submitted by editors December 26, 1940
Issued March 13, 1943

Pg 33

"IMPORTANCE OF DIATOMS AS A SOURCE OF FOOD IN THE SEA

Diatoms have for many years been recognized as an extremely important source of food for plankton animals. Haeckel (1890), Johnstone (1908), Lohmann (1911), Gran (1912, 1930, 1931), Lebour (1921, 1922, 1923), Herdman (1923), Bigelow (1926), and Allen (1934b) have published valuable discussions of the problems involved in the abundance of life in the sea. Johnstone (1908) stated: “The Diatomaceae are above all the most important organisms in the sea regarded from the point of view of their significance as the producers of organic substance. The diatoms are the ‘pastures of the sea’ and correspond to the ‘grass of the fields’ of the land.” Gran (1930) wrote: “These enormous
quantities of diatoms, without doubt, are the most important food for the pelagic copepods and indirectly for the fish larvae which develop after the great spring spawning period.” Phifer (1933) likewise wrote: “Marine plants are the principal source upon which the fauna of the oceans depends for the energy necessary for existence. . . . Undoubtedly the shore algae produce organic material forming nutritive substances for bacteria which in turn are probably consumed by small protozoa. However, the phytoplankton are directly consumed and produce organic food in much larger quantities since the areal extent of their distribution is many times greater than that of the shore forms. Of the groups in the phytoplankton, such as diatoms, dinoflagellates, algal spores, coccolithophores, the first mentioned play the major role in temperate seas.” "

Diatoms were thoroughly studied from 19th Century but unfortunately the knowledge is not being used today to solve problems of water pollution and climate change.

What's an Abundant Potential Food Source That We Haven't Developed a Taste for Yet?

2011-10-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/10/02/magazine/29mag-food-issue.html#/policy

What's an Abundant Potential Food Source That We Haven't Developed a Taste for Yet?

BY LUKE MITCHELL

ImagineChina/Corbis
Algae on the beach at a resort in Qingdao, Shandong, China.

While the world's farmers labored to produce 819 million tons of corn in 2009, the world's rivers, lakes and seas brought forth 30 trillion tons of algae. The only reason the oceans aren't choked with the stuff is because so many living things other than humans willingly devour it. No one has figured out a profitable way to harvest naturally occurring microalgae, but roving aquafarmers could in theory one day reap the oxygen-depleting algae blooms that have created at least 400 oceanic dead zones worldwide, some greater in area than New Jersey. In the meantime, a few companies have begun trying to make food from commercially grown algae. (Algae as a source of biofuel has been a money-losing proposition so far.) Scientists at Solazyme Roquette Nutritionals have developed an algalin flour that could replace the oil and eggs in many snacks; Aurora Algae (formerly Aurora Biofuels) is constructing a 1,500-acre production facility in Australia to make an ingredient for patties and nuggets. Leslie van der Meulen, Aurora's vice president for business development, says its product will "rival any chickenless item on the market today."

--------------------------------------

Fish, Shrimp, Oysters, etc., consume algae and have developed a means to 'harvest' [consume] algae.

Of course these mainly consume Diatom Algae and Green Algae and not Blue Green Algae.

Red Tide Bioluminescence gives spectacular neon blue light show [Video]

2011-10-02T18:38:00.000-07:00

Red Tide Bioluminescence gives spectacular neon blue light show [Video]

http://www.theweatherspace.com/news/TWS-100211_red-tide-bloom.html

Published on October 2, 2011 8:25 am PT
- By TWS Science Reporter
- Signed by SEO Officer

No larger image available

(TheWeatherSpace.com) - In one of the most spectacular ocean displays, 'Red Tide' is awing people in San Diego County. The Culprit; Phyoplankton. this Algal Bloom season has been going on since Late August.

Red Tide gets the name from the color of the water during the daytime. The color of the water is due to the Algal Bloom, in which large numbers of aquatic microorganism accumulate rapidly in the water. This causes a discolored surface.

Daphnia - Lake Lawnmowers

2011-09-30T18:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.ok4me2.net/2011/09/30/loss-of-lake-lawnmowers-leads-to-algae-blooms/

Loss of ‘Lake Lawnmowers’ Leads to Algae Blooms

Sep.30, 2011 in Earth Sciences, Lakes, Science and Technology

An algal bloom in a lake near Parry Sound, Ontario, located on the Canadian Shield, another region of Canada experiencing lakewater calcium decline. Image courtesy of Andrew Paterson. (Credit: Ontario Ministry of the Environment)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2011) — Unprecedented algae growth in some lakes could be linked to the decline of water calcium levels and the subsequent loss of an important algae-grazing organism that helps keep blooms at bay.

Daphnia – also known as water fleas — act like microscopic lawnmowers in lakes, feeding on algae and keeping it in check. However, without sufficient calcium, these water fleas cannot reproduce.

"When water calcium levels get low and Daphnia populations decrease in any lake, algal growth goes unchecked and blooms can occur," says lead author and biology doctoral student Jennifer Korosi. "Losing an important grazer like these water fleas has a domino effect that leads to other water quality problems."

Declining calcium concentrations in some lakes, which is linked to acid deposition and logging, has only recently been identified as a serious environmental problem in North America and Europe.

Jellyfish Invasion

2011-08-29T18:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyCigZ_bsTM&feature=youtu.be

Jellyfish Invasion

A very good video on Jelly fish.

Jelly fish may be blooming due to increase in Dinoflagellate biomass and decline in Diatoms.

Great Barrier Reef - Algal Blooms

2011-08-22T19:23:00.000-07:00

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=51757&src=nha

acquired August 9, 2011download large image (6 MB, JPEG)

acquired August 9, 2011download GeoTIFF file (64 MB, TIFF)

acquired August 9, 2011download Google Earth file (KML)

The Sea in many places is here cover’d with a kind of a brown scum, such as Sailors generally call spawn; upon our first seeing it, it alarm’d us, thinking we were among Shoals, but we found the same depth of Water were it was as in other places.

Sailing through the Coral Sea outside the Great Barrier Reef, Captain James Cook made those observations on August 28, 1770. His journals contain the first mention of the long brown filaments of cyanobacteria that arecommon along the Australian coast.

On August 9, 2011, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite captured this view of a similar band of brown between the Great Barrier Reef and the Queensland shore. Though it’s impossible to identify the species from satellite imagery, such red-brown streamers are usually trichodesmium.Sailors have long called these brown streamers “sea sawdust.”

Trichodesmium, a form of cyanobacteria, are small, usually single-celled organisms that grow in the ocean and produce food through photosynthesis like plants. They play an important role in Earth’s oceans because they convert nitrogen gas from the atmosphere to ammonia, a fertilizer that plants can use to grow. At the same time, trichodesmium removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Their blooms often occur in warm, nutrient-poor waters. Charles Darwin observed one such bloom from the HMS Beagle in 1832, marveling that “their numbers must be infinite.”

References
Cook, J. (1771). Captian Cook’s journal during his first voyage round the world made in H.M. Bark 1768-71.University of Adelaide, 2010. Accessed August 16, 2011.
Darwin, C. (1845). Voyage of the Beagle. Published on Literature.org. Accessed August 16, 2011.
Kuring, N. Great Barrier Reef. NASA Ocean Color Web. Accessed August 16, 2011.
University of California Museum of Paleontology. (n.d.). Introduction to the cyanobateria. Accessed August 16, 2011.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. (2002, September). Trichodesmium. Accessed August 16, 2011.

NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen, using data obtained from the Land Atmosphere Near-real time Capability for EOS (LANCE). Caption by Holli Riebeek.

Instrument:: Aqua - MODIS

Barents Sea - Algal Bloom

2011-08-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=51765&src=nha

acquired August 14, 2011download large image (3 MB, JPEG)

acquired August 14, 2011download GeoTIFF file (19 MB, TIFF)

acquired August 14, 2011download Google Earth file (KMZ)

Brilliant shades of blue and green explode across the Barents Sea in this natural-color image taken on August 14, 2011, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite. The color was created by a massive bloom of phytoplankton that are common in the area each August. The clear view is a rare treat since the Barents Sea is cloud-covered roughly 80 percent of the time in summer.

Plankton blooms spanning hundreds or even thousands of kilometers occur across the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans every year. Many species thrive in the cooler ocean waters, which tend to be richer in nutrients and plant life than tropical waters.

In this image, the milky blue color strongly suggests that the bloom contains coccolithophores, microscopic plankton that are plated with white calcium carbonate. When viewed through ocean water, a coccolithophore bloom tends to be bright blue. The species is most likely Emiliana huxleyi, whose blooms tend to be triggered by high light levels during the 24-hour sunlight of Arctic summer. The variations in bloom brightness and color in satellite images is partly related to its depth: E. huxleyi, can grow abundantly as much as 50 meters below the surface.

Other colors in the scene may come from sediment or other species of phytoplankton, particularly diatoms. The Barents Sea usually witnesses two major bloom seasons each year, with diatoms peaking in May and June, then giving way to coccolithophores as certain nutrients run out and waters grow warmer and more layered (stratified).

The area in this image is located immediately north of the Scandinavian peninsula. The region is a junction where several ocean current systems—including the Norwegian Atlantic, the Persey, and east Spitsbergen currents—merge and form a front known as the North Cape Current. The intersecting waters, plus stiff winds, promote mixing of waters and of nutrients from the deep.

Ice-covered for most of the year, the shallow Barents Sea reaches its warmest surface temperatures (6.6 C) in August, when ice cover is at a minimum and the water is freshest (less saline due to ice melt and river runoff) and most nutrient depleted. Those conditions, researchers have found, are perfect for coccolithophores to take over from other species and dominate the surface waters.

In a 2009 paper by Signorini et al, the researchers note:

Coccolithophores, among which E. huxleyi is the most abundant and widespread species, are considered to be the most productive calcifying organism on earth. They are important components of the carbon cycle via their contribution and response to changes in atmospheric CO2 levels...Coccolithophores appear to be advancing into some sub-Arctic Seas and climate change induced warming and freshwater runoff may be causing an increased frequency of coccolithophore blooms within the Barents Sea.

NASA recently sponsored a research cruise—known as ICESCAPE—in Arctic waters north of Alaska and Canada. Researchers were sampling coccolithophores there, among other species and environmental characteristics, to get a better view of the Arctic Ocean ecosystems and how they may be changing. The cruise is over, but you can still read the daily postings from six weeks at sea. Click here.

Related Reading
Signorini, S. R., and C. R. McClain (2009), Environmental factors controlling the Barents Sea spring-summer phytoplankton blooms. Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L10604, doi:10.1029/2009GL037695.
NASA Earth Observatory (1999) What is a Coccolithophore?" Accessed August 17, 2011.
NASA (2011) ICESCAPE Blog. Accessed August 17, 2011.

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Mike Carlowicz and Holli Riebeek, with interpretation from Barney Balch (Bigelow Laboratory) and Norman Kuring and Sergio Signorini of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Instrument:: Aqua - MODIS

Algal Bloom in NY/NJ Bight: Help Needed!

2011-08-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

http://cleanoceanaction.blogspot.com/2011/08/algal-bloom-in-nynj-bight-help-needed.html

Friday, August 19, 2011

Algal Bloom in NY/NJ Bight: Help Needed!

A huge algal bloom, indicated by the green color in the ocean water, was observed on August 17, 2011 in this True Color Satellite Image. The Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System, MARACOOS, has posted this image and additional information and data on its website, click here. The bloom covered much of the New York/New Jersey Bight which extends from Montauk, NY (the tip of Long Island) to Cape May, NJ.

The bloom consists of tiny algae, called phytoplankton, that contain the pigment, chlorophyll-a, which is measured in the satellite images. MARACOOS webpage shows an image of the Bight area on July 1 under more normal conditions for this time of year. The bloom initially began in mid-July along the middle to southern part of the Jersey Shore. Winds from the southwest blowing northeast became dominant from July 23-30 driving surface waters toward the ocean and causing water to upwell along the NJ coast. Nutrient-rich, cold waters from the ocean bottom rises during upwelling, fueling algal growth and blooms. These waters combine with coastal surface waters that are also nutrient rich due to the Hudson River outflow and coastal runoff.

In the summer, southwesterly winds and the associated occasional coastal upwelling is normal along certain specific areas of the Jersey shore. However, these blooms usually affect an area within about 9 - 12 miles (15-20 km) from shore, whereas the algal bloom this August extends to over 62 miles (100 km) into the ocean.

As the algae in the bloom die, they settle to the seafloor and decay using up oxygen. Reductions in dissolved oxygen to 4-5 mg/L have been observed by one of the autonomous underwater vehicles (Gliders) that have been deployed by Rutgers University to sample and monitor the Bight. Updates on glider data can be found here. Levels below the water quality of standard of 5 mg/L can stress and harm fish and other aquatic organisms. Clean Ocean Action (COA) has previously advocated for a glider to be used along the NJ coast by NJDEP and EPA and it is great to see that this effort has been funded, especially given this massive bloom event.

In addition to the upwelling process, another coastal oceanographic process off the northern part of the Jersey Shore has developed over the last week apparently in response to the extensive rain over the weekend in the New York/New Jersey region that resulted in high volumes of runoff and combined sewer overflows in the metropolitan area that discharge into the Hudson River Estuary. The bloom activity in the northern part of the Jersey Shore appears to be related to coastal runoff and the plume, the outflow, of the Hudson River.

COA is requesting the help of divers, fishermen, and boaters in the area to look for tell-tale signs of low dissolved oxygen and document their locations. Fishermen and boaters should be looking for fish floating on the surface or in their nets. Divers should look for lobsters, crabs and fish that usually hide in crevices, but are now in the open and lethargic. Also, divers should look for fish that are located higher on the wrecks and/or breathing with difficulty. If divers know how to use dissolved oxygen kits, they should take samples. COA is also asking government agencies to sample and monitor the bloom and its impacts.

Omega-3 taken in pregnancy could protect infants' health: study

2011-08-02T22:13:00.000-07:00

http://fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?l=e&ndb=1&id=44929

Omega-3 taken in pregnancy could protect infants' health: study

UNITED STATES
Wednesday, August 03, 2011, 04:20 (GMT + 9)

A new study by Emory University suggests that babies will be protected against illness during early infancy if their mothers consume omega-3 fatty acids from supplements or fish during pregnancy.

The findings of the randomized, placebo-controlled trial were published online in the journal Pediatrics.

Scientists followed about 1,100 pregnant women and 900 infants in Mexico. The women were given daily supplements of 400 mg of Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) in the algal form or placebo from 18 to 22 weeks gestation through childbirth.

The researchers said no fear should exist of mercury contamination in DHA from algae, HealthDay reports.

Children whose mothers took DHA supplements were found to suffer from fewer colds and shorter illnesses at one, three and six months of age.

"This is a large scale, robust study that underscores the importance of good nutrition during pregnancy," said Usha Ramakrishnan, PhD, associate professor, Hubert Department of Global Health at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health.

Ramakrishnan noted that, according to the study, pregnant women who take 400 mg of DHA are more likely to deliver healthier babies.

“There is research to suggest that the fatty acid composition of many of our cells—particularly the immune cells—affect their function,” Ramakrishnan commented,Health.com reports.

At one month of age, the infants in the DHA group had a reduced incidence of cold symptoms by 25 per cent, such a shorter duration of cough, phlegm and wheezing.

At three months of age, those infants spent 14 per cent less time sick.

At six months of age, those infants experienced shorter duration of fever, nasal secretion, difficulty breathing and rash, even though they had a longer duration of vomiting.

Ramakrishnan and her colleagues previously reported findings that babies of women pregnant with their first child who consumed 400 mg DHA during pregnancy delivered babies 100 g heavier at birth and 3/4 cm longer at 18 months of age.

The researchers also detected increased DHA levels in breast milk, and all of the infants in the study were breastfed.

“Recommending women to take a dose of up to 400 milligrams of DHA during pregnancy would be safe, [but] how much of a benefit there is we don’t know yet,” Ramakrishnan concluded.

The study was funded by the NIH and the March of Dimes Foundation.

Agricultural pollution blamed for Lake Erie blooms, fish woes

2011-07-30T10:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.cleveland.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2011/07/agricultural_pollution_blamed.html

Agricultural pollution blamed for Lake Erie blooms, fish woes

Published: Friday, July 29, 2011, 3:05 PM Updated: Friday, July 29, 2011, 3:13 PM

By D'Arcy Egan, The Plain Dealer
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D'Arcy Egan, the Plain DealerRecent rains have pushed a load of nutrients from the major rivers to Lake Erie, provoking algal blooms around the lake like this one in 2010 and causing low oxygen zones.

HURON, OHIO

The blooms are back on Lake Erie, and are just as destructive as in the 1960s when the most productive fishing lake in the world was declared dead. An overload of nutrients was the culprit a half-century ago. It is again, but from a different source.

Farmers from around the region are now being blamed.

"In the 1960s, we had an overload of nutrients from sewage treatment plants, industrial plants and phosphate-rich laundry detergent," said Jeff Tyson, the head of Lake Erie fishery management at the Lake Erie Research Unit in Sandusky. The walleye and whitefish populations plummeted and the popular blue pike became extinct.

"We managed to make changes starting in 1972 with the passage of the Great Lakes Water Quality Act, controlling the point source of phosphate pollution and banning phosphates in laundry detergent."

It worked.

Phosphate pollution declined, algal blooms subsided and walleye, yellow perch and smallmouth bass thrived. Lake Erie became the Walleye Capital of the World in the 1980s.

In recent years, farmers have been planting more corn to take advantage of high prices driven by the production of ethanol. They are loading fields with phosphate-rich fertilizer to enhance yields. As a result, silt, sediment and fertilizer are finding their way into the Lake Erie watershed. The problem is compounded by the U.S. Corps of Engineers dumping massive amounts of nutrient-rich sediment dredged from the Maumee River into Lake Erie

After a relatively dry summer, the rains over the last couple of weeks have resulted in major runoff from farm fields, triggering an algae-green cast to Western Lake Erie. Viewing satellite images of Lake Erie, the green waters are most evident near the mouth of the Maumee River, a major Lake Erie tributary.

"We fished just west of West Sister Island last week, and found low oxygen levels in that area," said Justin Chaffin, a PhD student at the University of Toledo's Lake Erie Center. "All of the walleye we caught were close to the surface, above the low oxygen layers caused by the bloom."

Tyson said the waters east of Kelleys Island are suffering from low oxygen, as well.

"Because of the low oxygen levels the fish move out, or they move up," said Tyson. "Walleye and even yellow perch will suspend over the low oxygen areas, sometimes diving down to the bottom to feed."

Anglers are finding large numbers of walleye in surprisingly shallow water from Huron to Vermilion where oxygen levels are normal, but not in deeper waters a few miles offshore, where catches had been very good a month ago. In some areas, anglers are finding yellow perch suspending well off the bottom, despite most of their preferred forage is found close to the lake bottom.

Eutrophication, when a body of water is inundated with an overload of nutrients that stimulate excessive plant and algae growth, is the biggest problem Lake Erie fisheries manager now face, said Tyson.

"Percids, the yellow perch and walleye, do not do well in a eutrophic lake," said Tyson. "We saw that in the 1960s, when their numbers crashed. It's happening again."

Unfortunately for Lake Erie anglers who favor perch, walleye and smallmouth bass, the species of fish that do well in eutrophic waters are sheepshead, channel catfish, white bass and white perch. The proliferation of white perch, a native of brackish water along the eastern U.S. coast that arrived in Lake Erie through the Welland Canal many years ago, is also impacting schools of yellow perch, said Tyson.

"There's no quick fix," said Tyson. "We have to make changes all around the watershed and limit the nutrients flowing into Lake Erie. We have to get the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Ohio Department of Agriculture and the Ohio EPA on board. We must provoke a major change in farming practices."

Despite bit of a stench, Franklin's water is harmless

2011-07-29T17:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110729/WILLIAMSON10/307290014/Despite-bit-stench-Franklin-s-water-harmless

Despite bit of a stench, Franklin's water is harmless

Kevin Walters | The Tennessean

Get Listed Here

Until cooler temperatures or more rainfall come this way, the distinct odor of the drinking water coming from some taps in Williamson County and elsewhere will probably linger.

Officials with the county’s primary water supplier, the Harpeth Valley Utilities District, say the mix of lower water levels in the Cumberland River, scarce rainfall and extended hot temperatures of 95-100 degrees have spurred algae blooms in the water.

Those algae blooms create compounds — known as geosmin and 2-methyl isoborneol or MIB — that have left many wrinkling their noses and smarting from the water’s taste, despite increased water treatment.

Ultimately, water management officials say the treated tap water is safe to drink. But if you feel like the smell is more prevalent and the problem more widespread than in summers past, you aren’t alone.

“This year appears to be worse than usual, as of right now,” said John Barnes, assistant general manager of the utility district.

Reports of foul-smelling water come from as far away as Nashville, Hendersonville and cities in Rutherford County.

“It’s really everybody who has surface water,” said Franklin City Administrator Eric Stuckey. “It’s really everybody.”

Much of Williamson County’s water comes from the Cumberland River. Water is pumped here by Harpeth Valley for use by cities and other utility districts. In addition to buying water from HVUD, the city of Franklin pumps some of its drinking water from the Harpeth River and treats it at its Franklin water plant.

In Franklin, water department staffers have been furiously flushing water lines to get rid of the foul-smelling water. More than 200 hydrants have been flushed since the problem surfaced last week, city officials said, and staffers worked more than 122 hours of overtime.

At first, the problem seemed heaviest in southern parts of the cities, but reports of foul-smelling water have spread.

City spokeswoman Milissa Reierson said crews are focusing on hydrants located on dead-end lines, as those seem to be having the most difficulties.

Stuckey said he feels like the problem has lessened somewhat in recent days.

“I don’t know when it will completely resolve,” Stuckey said. “Rain helps. Lower temperature helps.”

To help improve the water’s taste at home, Barnes recommends chilling the drinking water, which might decrease the smell, or using a carbon filter for drinking water, which should improve the odor and taste.

“There shouldn’t be any concern about the safety of the water,” Barnes said.

Contact Kevin Walters at 615-771-5472 orkewalters@tennessean.com

China Red Tides

2011-07-14T18:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-07/14/content_12906758.htm

China reports 24 red tides in 1st half of 2011

Updated: 2011-07-14 21:57

(Xinhua)

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BEIJING - China saw 24 red tides in its coastal waters in the first six months this year, with atotal contaminated maritime area of 982 square km, according to a report released by the StateOceanic Administration (SOA).

It was less than the average number of red tides for the same period over the last five years,the administration said Thursday.

During the January to June period, 14 red tides occurred in the East China Sea with a totalcontaminated sea area of 721 square km, and three red tides were reported in the Bohai Sea,which affected a total sea area of 200 square km, the administration said.

Meanwhile, the South China Sea recorded six red tides in which the affected maritime areaamounted to 41 square km, and the Yellow Sea saw one red tide, with a total affected sea areaof 20 square km.

In addition, one green tide occurred in the Yellow Sea during the first half of this year, whichcurrently remains there, according the SOA.

A red or green tide, also known as an algal bloom, is when algae accumulate rapidly in water,resulting in discoloration of the surface water. These algae vary in color from green to brown,but are mostly red.

"Red Tide" bioluminescence phenomenon

2011-07-11T21:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.animalpicturesarchive.com/view.php?tid=2&did=34800

Eye-Catching Bioluminescent Wonders - Red Tide [LiveScience 2011-07-08]

Tide Lightshow
Credit: Matt Catalano | neverendingsearch.net

The "red tide" bioluminescence phenomenon — when waves of water appear to glow neon green, blue from within — is actually caused by millions of tiny organisms called dinoflagellates. These are a subcategory of plankton, which are single-celled marine organisms that are capable of photosynthesis. An overgrowth of these organisms causes visible patches to "bloom" on the water's surface in red, yellow, brown, red or even black colors during the day. But at night, the concentration of bioluminescent plankton lights up as it washes ashore with the tide. The mysterious glow comes from the dinoflagelletes reacting to being disturbed. When the tiny organisms are bothered, they produce a light that lasts for a fraction of a second. The flash serves to surprise predators and possibly attract other predators to the creature disturbing the dinoflagellate, which will likely cause the original offender to leave the plankton alone.

Source: LiveScience - http://www.livescience.com

Krill provide iron for Southern Ocean: study

2011-07-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

Krill provide iron for Southern Ocean: study

http://fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?l=e&ndb=1&id=44144

An international team of researchers has found that Antarctic krill could be vital in the fertilization of the Southern Ocean with iron and thereby the stimulation of phytoplankton growth. This enrichment betters the ocean’s ability to store CO2.

The tiny shrimp-like crustacean is the staple diet for various fish, penguins, seals and whales, as well as being caught by commercial fisheries for human consumption by way of omega-3-rich krill oil and other products.

In findings published this month in the journal Limnology and Oceanography, researchers describe how Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), instead of residing mostly in surface waters, regularly spend time on the sea floor feeding on iron-rich fragments of decaying organisms. The krill then swim back up to the surface of the ocean and release the iron from their stomachs and into the water.

"We are really excited to make this discovery because the textbooks state krill live mainly in surface waters,” said lead author from British Antarctic Survey Dr Katrin Schmidt.

“We knew they make occasional visits to the sea floor but these were always thought as exceptional. What surprises us is how common these visits are – up to 20 per cent of the population can be migrating up and down the water column at any one time," she noted.

The team of researchers dissected the stomach contents of more than 1,000 krill harvested from 10 Antarctic research expeditions and discovered that the krill caught near the surface contained high levels of iron-rich material from the seabed in their stomachs.

Plus, the scientists studied photographs of krill on the sea floor, acoustic data and net samples, all of which gave sturdy evidence that the crustaceans frequently feed at the bottom of the sea.

These recent findings have implications for managing commercial krill fisheries and can help better comprehend the natural carbon cycle in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean.

“The next steps are to look at exactly how this iron is released into the water," Schmidt added.

Antarctica’s krill fishery is expanding. It is managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).

An estimated 100-500 million tonnes of krill -- similar to the weight of the world's human population -- roam in the Southern Ocean.

Carbon Cycle

2011-06-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/?src=eoa-features

The Carbon Cycle

A previous version of this article, written in 2001, is now archived as a PDF file.

By Holli RiebeekDesign by Robert SimmonJune 16, 2011

Carbon is the backbone of life on Earth. We are made of carbon, we eat carbon, and our civilizations—our economies, our homes, our means of transport—are built on carbon. We need carbon, but that need is also entwined with one of the most serious problems facing us today: global climate change.

Forged in the heart of aging stars, carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the Universe. Most of Earth’s carbon—about 65,500 billion metric tons—is stored in rocks. The rest is in the ocean, atmosphere, plants, soil, and fossil fuels.

Carbon flows between each reservoir in an exchange called the carbon cycle, which has slow and fast components. Any change in the cycle that shifts carbon out of one reservoir puts more carbon in the other reservoirs. Changes that put carbon gases into the atmosphere result in warmer temperatures on Earth.

This diagram of the fast carbon cycle shows the movement of carbon between land, atmosphere, and oceans. Yellow numbers are natural fluxes, and red are human contributions in gigatons of carbon per year. White numbers indicate stored carbon. (Diagram adapted from U.S. DOE, Biological and Environmental Research Information System.)

Over the long term, the carbon cycle seems to maintain a balance that prevents all of Earth’s carbon from entering the atmosphere (as is the case on Venus) or from being stored entirely in rocks. This balance helps keep Earth’s temperature relatively stable, like a thermostat.

This thermostat works over a few hundred thousand years, as part of the slow carbon cycle. This means that for shorter time periods—tens to a hundred thousand years—the temperature of Earth can vary. And, in fact, Earth swings between ice ages and warmer interglacial periods on these time scales. Parts of the carbon cycle may even amplify these short-term temperature changes.

The uplift of the Himalaya, beginning 50 million years ago, reset Earth’s thermostat by providing a large source of fresh rock to pull more carbon into the slow carbon cycle through chemical weathering. The resulting drop in temperatures and the formation of ice sheets changed the ratio between heavy and light oxygen in the deep ocean, as shown in this graph. (Graph based on data from Zachos at al., 2001.)

On very long time scales (millions to tens of millions of years), the movement of tectonic plates and changes in the rate at which carbon seeps from the Earth’s interior may change the temperature on the thermostat. Earth has undergone such a change over the last 50 million years, from the extremely warm climates of the Cretaceous (roughly 145 to 65 million years ago) to the glacial climates of the Pleistocene (roughly 1.8 million to 11,500 years ago). [See Divisions of Geologic Time—Major Chronostratigraphic and Geochronologic Units for more information about geological eras.]

All the Pretty Jellyfish

2011-06-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=102729&sectionid=1021

All the Pretty Jellyfish

Video captures majestic migrations of Mastigias

Pat Lohmann recently traveled to the tiny Western Pacific island nation of Palau to locate coral reefs with Anne Cohen, a scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). On a free day, Lohmann, a scientist emeritus at WHOI and an expert diver, headed straight to see one of Palau's natural wonders, Ongeim’l Tketau, also known as Jellyfish Lake, where he trained his high-definition video camera on the thousands of jellyfish undulating around him.
“In some ways, you see more in the video than we did when we were in the lake,” Lohmann said. “You can slow it down, you can see it all.”
This landlocked saltwater lake is home to millions of globular jellyfish ranging from minuscule to basketball-size. Every day, like clockwork, they all swim in a mass back and forth across the quarter-mile-long lake. Tourists don snorkels and swim among the pulsing blobs.
The lake’s jellyfish are mostly Mastigias whose ancestors came into the lake from the nearby ocean. Scientists think that rising sea levels thousands of years ago allowed seawater to fill the steep-sided marine lake, one of several in Palau. It’s a little like a giant natural aquarium, with similar conditions to the nearby ocean, but on a smaller scale and with far less variety of fauna. The lake is connected to the ocean only by fissures in the surrounding limestone, which keeps the lake isolated and the animals trapped.
Lohmann said he had read a lot about the jellyfish and watched low-resolution video of them on YouTube, so he knew what to expect of the lake. “The unexpected part was that it was harder to get to than I thought. It’s a sinkhole on an island, so you can’t just walk in from the beach. You end up going up over a steep rim and then back down again,” over rocks slick with tropical growth, he said. “And you’re dressed for swimming, not for hiking.”
But being among these extraordinary jellyfish was worth the hike, he said.
Most jellyfish feed by capturing small animal plankton with specialized stinging cells on their long tentacles. (Fortunately for Lohmann and the other snorkelers, the lake’s denizens, while they can deliver a mild sting, lack the powerful stinging ability that makes many jellyfish unpleasant swimming companions.) Mastigias can also capture and feed on tiny animals, but they have another option.
Mastigias have evolved to rely on a distinctive partnership for their nutrition. They have a symbiotic relationship with single-celled marine algae. Inside the tissues of Mastigias’ frilly arms live millions of single-celled algae called zooxanthellae, which use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide and solar energy into carbohydrates that the jellyfish use for energy.
The lake-bound jellyfish migrate across the lake and back during the day, swimming continuously. Scientists believe this is for two reasons: to keep their zooxanthellae in the light, and to avoid the shadows that form at the lake edges, where Mastigias’ predators (bottom-living sea anemones) live. At night, the Mastigias stop moving horizontally and swim up and down in the lake, away from the edges. Scientists have suggested that the nightly trips might provide the algae with essential nutrients available only in deeper water.
Studying Mastigias’ movements in Jellyfish Lake, Kakani Katija, now a postdoctoral scholar at WHOI, has proposed that swimming jellies, moving up and down en masse, could play an ecologically significant, previously unsuspected role in mixing stratified layers of water within the ocean. Her work was published in 2009 in the journal Nature.
"There's no ecosystem like Jellyfish Lake in the world," she said. "This is a great place to see how the jellyfish affected mixing in the lake, because there's much less wind and tidal motion affecting the water than in the ocean, so you can isolate the effect of the jellies."
WHOI Director of Research Larry Madin (whose doctoral adviser William Hamner was one of the first to describe theMastigias migration) studies jellyfish and other gelatinous ocean animals, from the Antarctic to the tropics.
"These Mastigias are beautiful and hypnotic," he said, “and they also offer a remarkable lesson in how animals and ecosystems adapt and evolve.” Interestingly, the Mastigias in each of Palau’s five jellyfish lakes, though the same species, all look different from each other and from Mastigias in the nearby ocean. The jellyfish in all five lakes have zooxanthellae, but each lake's jellyfish may depend on its symbiotic algae for nutrition to a different degree.
Madin participates in an international group called the Jellyfish Blooms Working Group, which studies the possible global expansion of jellyfish blooms. He encourages anyone interested in jellyfish and their kin to check out the group's pages at www.jellywatch.org.

—Kate Madin

Stephen Carpenter and the 2011 Stockholm Water Prize

2011-05-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

http://earthsky.org/human-world/stephen-carpenter-and-the-2011-stockholm-water-prize

Stephen Carpenter and the 2011 Stockholm Water Prize

American environmental scientist Stephen Carpenter won the 2011 Stockholm Water Prize – given to someone who’s worked to improve the state of the world’s water resources. Carpenter’s focus – freshwater lakes.

In March 2011, an American environmental scientist, Stephen Carpenter of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, won the Stockholm Water Prize. It’s given each year to someone who’s worked to improve the state of the world’s water resources. Carpenter’s focus – freshwater lakes. He told EarthSky:

I have focused particularly on the over-enrichment of freshwater with nutrients.

That is, runoff from farms into lakes. Dr. Carpenter has studied the American Midwest for nearly 40 years. These lakes suffer from an influx of nutrients from fertilizers and manure. Carpenter said:

Pollution of rivers and lakes and reservoirs with those materials lead to blooms of toxic algae, loss of oxygen, fish kills and related problems.

Dr. Carpenter tries to address these problems at their source – the farmer’s fields. He said the major culprit, at least in the upper U.S. Midwest, is manure and over-fertilization – people using way too much fertilizer on the land. He said:

Decreasing fertilizer use is mainly a matter of giving farmers accurate information about how much fertilizer they need often they don’t need to spend so much money adding fertilizer, once they know that, they’ll add less.
The manure problem is much harder to deal with, because this is dairy country and there’s a lot of manure up here, and it’s a waste product that farms have a difficult problem disposing of. We have worked to develop manure containment facilities, for example, that keep the manure from running off, there are certain times of year when it is much more harmful to apply the manure to land, and we try to identify those times of year. Right now we’re experimenting with manure digesters that actually convert the manure to natural gas, which makes energy.

The manure problem is hard to deal with, said Carpenter, because Wisconsin is dairy country. Image credit: Royalty-free image collection

A number of Wisconsin lakes have restored health – more big fish, fewer toxic blooms – thanks to Dr. Carpenter’s work. He explained why he thinks his team has been able to take their scientific work from theory, into community practice:

I think an important part of what we do is to help people understand that no one really understands. These huge complex systems, and anything we try is to some degree experimental. But doing something is way better than doing nothing.

Dr. Carpenter said that another vital part of his work with Wisconsin’s lakes involves collaboration with fisheries managers and the general public, to control what’s being fished in local lakes. He said:

Fisheries are managed by setting limits on the sizes of fish that can be removed, and on the numbers of fish that can be removed. If the size limits are adjusted so that only the very largest fish are removed – in other words, you cant take a fish unless it’s a very big one – then the effect is to increase the overall size of the individual fishes in the population, you end up with a lot more big fish. You end up with more grazers, and less algae.

He said that no two technological solutions for lake pollution across the world look exactly alike.

Technology is basically the application of human knowledge to solve a problem. In many cases, these are just farming smarter in a given place.
For example, in Wisconsin, there are ways of using manure on farms that increase the water-holding capacity of the soil, so those methods decrease flooding, wastage of water, and they decrease runoff of nutrients. A simple thing, but it has to be developed region by region. The practices that work for Wisconsin are probably not the practices that will work for Arkansas. It takes a lot of local work but it can be done.

Dr. Carpenter added that local lake problems add up to global ones.

I think the biggest issue facing freshwater, globally, is agriculture. Agriculture is the largest consumer of freshwater among human activities. It is the largest polluter of freshwater among human activities.

Agriculture is also one of the largest drivers of climate change, he told EarthSky.

Researchers find eco-friendly chemical for toxic algae control - CSMCRI

2011-05-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article2041753.ece?homepage=true

Researchers find eco-friendly chemical for toxic algae control

PTI

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The HinduFish can die on consumption of Amphidinium Cartarae, such is its toxicity. Further, the seafood with traces of this algae can make humans sick, mainly with stomach-related ailments. File Photo

Researchers at the Central Salt Marine and Chemical Research Institute have standardised a new, cheaper and eco-friendly process to deal with toxic marine algae which can be fatal to fish as well as humans who eat sea-food.

The process uses ‘amino-acid derived ionic liquid surfactants’ (AADILSes).

They are eco-friendly compounds, having an edge over the conventional liquid organic solvents like Benzene, Toulene and Chloromethane.

AADILSes also find use in drug delivery processes, making of bio-molecular devices, and nano-material synthesis.

“We have standardised a process to convert natural amino acids into ionic liquid surfactants which are very versatile in nature and highly bio-degradable,” said Dr Arvind Kumar, a scientist at the Bhavnagar-based institute.

“The ionic liquids are ten times more surface-active compared with the conventional surfactants. They have been found suitable for removal of harmful algae from sea water,” Kumar said.

“We exposed AADILSs to a toxic marine algae -- Amphidinium Cartarae -- to test its ability to prevent algal bloom. The results show that small concentration of it was enough to kill algae without side-effects on the surrounding environment.”

Fish can die on consumption of Amphidinium Cartarae, such is its toxicity. Further, the seafood with traces of this algae can make humans sick, mainly with stomach-related ailments.

The researchers used natural amino acids such as glycine, alanine, valine, glutamic acid and proline to produce the eco-friendly AAIDLSes, which are cheaper than bio-surfactants derived from micro organisms.

“The amino acids which we used cost around Rs 1,000 per kg, which is cheaper than the bio-surfactants available for prevention of growth of harmful marine algae,” Kumar said.

Bio-surfactants such as phospholipids are difficult to obtain and expensive to produce.

“The process of deriving bio-surfactants takes weeks or even more, whereas deriving ionic liquid surfactants from amino acids only takes a few hours,” he said.

A lot of research is currently underway to find ways to replace hazardous chemicals in various chemical processes with ionic liquids, the researchers at CSMCRI said.

Hutt River, New Zealand

2011-05-22T18:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5035910/Hutt-River-clogged-with-ooze-and-toxic-algae

Hutt River clogged with ooze and toxic algae

PAUL EASTON

The Hutt Valley's treasured river.

The river is under pressure. Toxic algae blooms plague it during summer and are believed responsible for the deaths of nine dogs.The Hutt River is bordered by paths, lined with parks, and peppered with swimming spots. It is the Hutt Valley's playground, but its duties do not end there. It is also the source of most of the drinking water for the Hutt and Wellington.

Wastewater still flows into the river during wet weather about six times a year when the amount of water exceeds the capacity of the stormwater system.

A proposal to take up to 17 million extra litres a day from the Hutt River may pose a new threat.

Greater Wellington regional council has applied to cut the river's minimum flow for three years during work on water storage lakes at Kaitoke. The work will increase storage by 13 per cent and earthquake-strengthen the lakes.

Hutt city councillors backed the proposal with several caveats, including a halt to the extra take if the river's health suffers.

Councillor Max Shierlaw opposes the plan. "It is likely to reduce the water quality of the river, lead to increased instances of algal bloom because the conditions needed . . . - low flow and warm water - will happen more often."

It highlights a lack of planning for extra water needs by Greater Wellington, he says. "They have no medium-term options and are resorting to trashing a significant regional asset."

CONCERNS about the health of the river led to the formation of the Friends of the Hutt River group this year. "You don't live in the Hutt Valley for the shopping. You live there because of the hills, the beauty of the place, and the river flowing through it," member Pat van Berkel says.

Toxic algal blooms, pollution and low water flows are the group's main worries.

"People are always saying when they were growing up, the Hutt River was full of water."

As the population grows, pressure on the river will increase. "They will all need water, and that's where it all comes from."

Toxic algal blooms stop people using the river at the height of summer. "It's quite a subtle effect, but it's taking away something that is very important," Mr van Berkel says.

Waiwhetu means "star-reflecting water". But poisoned by years of industry waste, the Waiwhetu Stream became the most polluted waterway in the region.

Once home to eels, whitebait and watercress, the stream instead hosted "Waiwhetu ooze", a black sludge, thick with traces of lead, copper, arsenic, zinc and mercury.

A $21 million project to scrape the ooze from the stream's banks wrapped up a year ago, with 56,000 tonnes of contaminated waste removed.

However, Hutt City Council still discharges wastewater, containing untreated sewage, into the stream during storms.

This week, 50,000 litres of treated effluent a day was pumped into the lower Waiwhetu Stream, after a joint in the main sewer pipeline failed at Eastbourne. From there, it flowed into Wellington Harbour. Repairs took four days.

Ted Taylor, Greater Wellington's environmental monitoring and investigations manager, says the Hutt River is "one of the better rivers in the region". Its upper reaches are in "excellent" health, its middle section "excellent to good", and its lower reaches "good to fair".

"You see a decline in clarity, and an increase in algal growth."That is typical for a river flowing from the hills through farmland and an urban area to the sea, he says.

Threats to the river include runoff from stormwater drains, likely to increase as the population grows.

People need to realise that whatever goes into the stormwater system ends up in the river, and ultimately, Wellington Harbour, Mr Taylor says.

"If that can happen, we like to think we can maintain the water quality of the river."

Despite the $21m cleanup, the Waiwhetu Stream's quality remains poor. It has low levels of dissolved oxygen, poor clarity, and high levels of ammonia, zinc and nutrients.

Although the cleanup scraped thousands of tonnes of contaminated sludge from its banks, the stream still passes through industrial and suburban stretches, picking up contaminants along the way.

Zinc comes from car-tyre fragments, or washes off galvanised roofs. The presence of ammonia is a tell-tale sign of cross-connections - wastewater systems hooked up to stormwater drains, Mr Taylor says.

"It can be through poor plumbing practices. It may be done deliberately as an easy way out, or it can be a mistake."

Te Atiawa iwi representative Teri Puketapu says the Hutt River and Waiwhetu Stream are of great importance to Maori.

The Hutt River is feeling the strain of a growing population. "When I grew up, all of Naenae was market gardens."

The Waiwhetu was once an important source of food, such as eels and watercress.

"But I don't take anything from it now, and I don't know anyone who does," Mr Puketapu says.

- The Dominion Post

Ford Lake, Michigan - Whole Lake Experiment

2011-05-17T19:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.cees.iupui.edu/Research/Water_Resources/CIWRP/Algae_Information/Presentations/2010-06-17-Symposium/2010-06-17_Lehman-Whole_Lake_Experiments.pdf

Whole Lake Experiments to Control Harmful Cyanobacteria

I like the 3rd page, slide 5 and 6.

Cyano are the villains and Diatoms - The Heroes.

Dr Lehman and his team caused a bloom of Diatoms in Ford Lake by changing the way water is released from the reservoir. This solved thecyano bloom problem.

US Water problems - NY Times report

2011-05-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

http://projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters

Harmful Algal Blooms

2011-05-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/harmfulagalblooms.htm

The number of harmful algal blooms has increased over the last 40 years, especially in regions with large increases in coastal populations and over fishing.

Pyrite - nano iron in oceans

2011-05-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=119431&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click

May 8, 2011

Similar to humans, the bacteria and tiny plants living in the ocean need iron for energy and growth. But their situation is quite different from ours--for one, they can't turn to natural iron sources like leafy greens or red meat for a pick-me-up.

So, from where does their iron come?

New research results published in the current issue of the journal Nature Geoscience point to a source on the seafloor: minute particles of pyrite, or fool's gold, from hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean.

Scientists already knew the vents' cloudy plumes, which spew forth from the earth's interior, include pyrite particles, but thought they were solids that settled back on the ocean bottom.

Now, scientists at the University of Delaware and other institutions have shown the vents emit a significant amount of microscopic pyrite particles that have a diameter 1,000 times smaller than that of a human hair.

Because the nanoparticles are so small, they are dispersed into the ocean rather than falling to the sea floor.

Barbara Ransom, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research, called the discovery "very exciting."

"These particles have long residence times in the ocean and can travel long distances from their sources, forming a potentially important food source for life in the deep sea," she said.

The project also received support from another NSF program, the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCOR.

The mineral pyrite, or iron pyrite, has a metallic luster and brass-yellow color that led to its nickname: fool's gold. In fact, pyrite is sometimes found in association with small quantities of gold.

Scientist George Luther of the University of Delaware explained the importance of the lengthy amount of time pyrite exists suspended in its current form in the sea, also known as its residence time.

Pyrite, which consists of iron and sulfur as iron disulfide, does not rapidly react with oxygen in seawater to form oxidized iron, or "rust," allowing it to stay intact and move throughout the ocean better than other forms of iron.

"As pyrite travels from the vents to the ocean interior and toward the surface ocean, it oxidizes gradually to release iron, which becomes available in areas where iron is depleted so that organisms can assimilate it, then grow," Luther said.

"It's an ongoing iron supplement for the ocean--much as multivitamins are for humans."

Algal bloom photos

2011-05-09T18:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.askbluey.com/Image?q=Algal+Bloom

Collection of 5000 plus photos of algal blooms worldwide.

Algae blooms creating a Canning River in Australia

2011-05-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/algae-blooms-creating-a-pongy-river-20110506-1eb70.html

Algae blooms creating a pongy river

Lucy Rickard May 6, 2011

Publish Post

Blooming algae can produce nasty odours.

The Canning River could get a bit smelly if an algae bloom continues to worsen between Riverton and Cannington.

The Swan River Trust is monitoring elevated levels of single-cell algae, gymnodinium, which can bloom to reach high numbers.

Trust principal scientist Kerry Trayler said while this particular species is not known to be harmful to humans or produce toxins; it can strip the water of oxygen and produce foul odours.

Dr Trayler said fish and other animals in the river could be affected if oxygen levels continue to drop in the areas between Riverton and Bacon Street, Cannington, however tidal movements could push the bloom significantly downstream.

Fish that are affected by low oxygen levels will be slow-moving and sluggish.

The Department of Health has maintained its long-standing advice to the community not to eat mussels, cockles or oysters from the Swan and Canning Rivers.

Mass. bans shellfishing in parts of Cape Cod - due to Red Tide

2011-05-06T20:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/05/06/mass_bans_shellfishing_in_parts_of_cape_cod/

Mass. bans shellfishing in parts of Cape Cod

May 6, 2011

BOSTON—

The state has closed areas of the Nauset Marsh system between Orleans and Eastham on Cape Cod to shellfishing because of concerns about toxic "red tide".

The state Division of Marine Fisheries said Friday the area is closed immediately because shellfish have been found contaminated by the plankton present in red tide. The toxin can affect the human nervous system and even cause fatal paralysis.

Among the areas included are Nauset Harbor, Town Cove, and Mill Pond in Orleans and Salt Pond in Eastham.

Digging, harvesting or collecting and/ attempting to dig, harvest or collect shellfish and the possession of shellfish, including carnivorous snails, from the defined areas is prohibited.

The state said experts from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute have seen increasing levels of the toxic plankton in the marsh system.

Tilapia in Sewage Ponds

2011-04-19T21:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/purl.cover.jsp;jsessionid=A9D1CEBA7B359933815F753131BBDD26?purl=/6686107-QH9pDP/

GROWTH OF MOWOSEX HYBRID TILAPIA IN THE LABORATORY AMD

SWAGE OXIDATION PONDS

J. Samuel Suffern, S. M. Adams, B. G. Blaylock

C. C. Coutant and C. A. Guthrie

Environmental Sciences Division

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830

ABSTRACT

Studies vere conducted to evaluate the potential of monosex hybrid

tilapia ( ? T_. mossaabica x ^ T. hoi-norum) in waste-heat polyculture

systems. The optimum growth temperature for this! hybrid vas found to be

32 C in laboratory experiments. Experiments in sewage pond cage culture

in the temperature range 01" 23-33°C at stocking densities of ^ 53 fish/m

were also conducted. At fish sizes between 5 and: 12 cm TL, estimated

annual pr-durtion is approximately 50,003 kg/ha/yr (50,000 Ib/acre/yr).

Pish in the sewage oxidation ponds grsv significantly faster than

fish fed trout chow at optinun ter.pcrs.ture in the laboratory, even

though temperatures in the sewage ponds averaged below the optimum

growth temperature. Techniques to accelerate growth rates are being

explored. Exposure to garsna radiation (530 rads), known to cause significant

increases in channel catfish growth rate;, was found to have a

similar effect on tilapia. After a 20-week growth period, exposed fish

weighed an average of 20^ more than controls.

Spring Lake - HAB - Alum

2011-04-19T21:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.lakescientist.com/2011/spring-lake-waterfront-community-optimistic-for-alum%E2%80%99s-prolonged-progress-111

Spring Lake waterfront community optimistic for alum’s prolonged progress

Posted Mon Apr 18, 2011 1:21 pm by Charity Smalls

Village of Spring Lake

Spring Lake, Mich. residents are pleased with the continued results of an aluminum sulfate, or alum, treatment on Spring Lake. For years, the lake was plagued with algal blooms, rendering the water unusable for recreation. Whilealgal blooms manifest naturally and possibly seasonally contingent on weather and water condition, their growth can be provoked by human activity such as industrial and agricultural waste drainage as well as natural factors like temperature and water traits.

High numbers of algal bloom result in lower levels of dissolved oxygen and death of aquatic plant and animal life. Spring Lake is extremely eutrophic and has high percentages of nutrient cycling, which caused prevalent algal blooms to appear in summer months. However, a Grand Valley State University studyconducted in 2010 has confirmed water quality in the lake has improved tremendously.

Six years ago, the Spring Lake Board devised a multipart plan to improve and watch over the lake’s water quality for a decade. The project included treating the lake with aluminum sulfate. Before treatment, Spring Lake’s phosphorous levels were approximately 325 parts per billion. In 2005, nearly 1.2 million gallons of alum were sprayed over deep sections of the lake.

Alan Steinman, director of GVSU’s Water Resources Institute, said the 2010 study measured the 2005 phosphorus levels against 2010 levels, and he found they had plummeted to less than 30 parts per billion. Although phosphorus levels have increased somewhat, Steinman is optimistic.

“…It is still significantly lower than 2003. I was very pleased by the continued effectiveness of the alum,” he said.

Steinman is not the only one pleased with the results. Bruce Kennedy, a Spring Lake resident, remembers the condition of the lake prior to treatment.

“The algae blooms we experienced in the past were like pea soup,” he said, adding that he thought the alum treatment has worked well.

Although the treatment has been largely successful, Steinman warned against treating the alum as a cure-all. The alum deals with the effects of the problem rather than the problem itself, he said. It attaches itself to the phosphorus, removing it from the water and pulling it into the sediments at the bottom of the lake.

“The alum treatment has been effective five years later,” he said. “But it is impossible to say how much longer it is going to last.”

Spring Lake waterfront residents hope for continued success from chemical treatment [Muskegon Chronicle]
Spring Lake Phosphorus Project-Project Information [Annis Water Resources Institute]
Algal blooms in fresh water [Water Encyclopedia]
The Reduction of Internal Phosphorus Loading Using alum in Spring Lake, Michigan [Wetland Biogeochemistry Laboratory, University of Florida]

Image Credit: http://www.springlakevillage.org/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Alum only deals with the symptom and not the problem.

The quantity used is very large - 1.2 Million gallons.

Alluminium may accumulate and become toxic

(if Copper sulfate were to be used as an Algaecide, copper would accumulate)

Redondo Beach, California Fish Kill

2011-04-05T19:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-fishy-sardine.html

Nothing fishy about sardine kill

April 5, 2011 By Pamela J. Johnson

Doctoral candidate Beth Stauffer (left), research technician Alyssa Gellene, and Astrid Schnetzer, assistant research professor, all of David Caron's laboratory use an EcoMapper to measure the oxygen level and other water data toward the end of the cleanup effort at King Harbor. Credit: Carl Oberg

Algal bloom specialist David Caron knows exactly what caused the death of 2.5 million sardines at King Harbor and is producing a paper on his research. The city of Redondo Beach gave him

The few million silvery sardines that recently went belly up at Redondo Beach have been removed and the rotten egg smell has nearly dissipated.

But the fish kill story at King Harbor is not over.

“We’re going to have one of the best documented events of this kind that has ever been done probably anywhere in the world,” said David Caron, professor of biological sciences in USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

“Our sensor equipment was in the water before, during and after it happened; luckily we had one right at ground zero,” Caron said. “And we physically got there the day it happened.”

Caron and his team are compiling their research on the March phenomenon in which more than 2 million — 175 tons — of sardines swam into the marina and died. An expert in aquatic ecosystems, Caron and his researchers are working closely with the city of Redondo Beach and King Harbor in finding answers about what caused the phenomenon and how such a fish kill may be prevented. They are also monitoring what is being done with the fish corpses.

Instruments suspended in the harbor throughout the event revealed that the fish were killed by a lack of oxygen in the harbor water — not toxins from an algal bloom which some news outlets had erroneously reported. Caron’s team also used an EcoMapper to help characterize water quality. The EcoMapper is a self-propelled device that traverses the water with a scanning sonar, mapping the ocean floor and collecting real-time water quality data.

“The fish were jammed in a small space in the harbor and ran out of oxygen,” Caron said. Although not the cause of death, the stomachs in the dead fish contained algae that produced domoic acid, a heterocyclic amino acid associated with harmful algal blooms. They ate the toxins before crowding into the harbor and running out of oxygen, Caron said, adding that a significant toxic algal bloom did exist in the coastal waters off the Palos Verdes Peninsula at the time of the event.

Caron and his researchers have been studying King Harbor since a fish kill occurred there in 2005. In 2006, they began taking weekly water samples and the next year, installed sensors that measure in part the temperature, salinity, chlorophyll and plant pigment in the water. Their sensors record the measurements every half hour, detecting any algal blooms and toxic algae that may be present.

“This allows us to have a finger on the pulse on what’s going on out there,” Caron said. “This most recent event happened virtually overnight.”

Early March 8, Caron received a call from one of the marinas about the dead fish, which had started perishing overnight. Several of Caron’s researchers were dispatched right away. Astrid Schnetzer, research assistant professor, was one who arrived the first day, then returned to collect samples and measurements for several consecutive days with engineering technician Carl Oberg, lab technician Alyssa Gellene and Ph.D. candidates Beth Stauffer and Erica Seubert.

“It became so packed with sardines you couldn’t see the water,” Schnetzer recounted, adding that in some places a 3-foot-thick layer of fish had settled along the harbor floor. “Fish corpses were everywhere. It looked as if you could walk between the boats across the sardines.”

After a few days, it got worse.

“The smell made me nauseous,” she said. “People were complaining that it made their eyes burn. It was the most rotten straightforward smell you can imagine.”
All their effort was worth it.

“We’ve been there waiting for something like this to happen for five years,” Caron said. “When these events usually happen, we’re basically chasing the ambulance. By the time we get there it’s over. In this case, we were there before it happened.”

Caron and his team have also been honored by the city of Redondo Beach, which acknowledged their assistance and expertise involving handing the fish and the inquiries surrounding the event. Caron has given many interviews on the science behind what occurred, has worked with the city on cleanup and is still monitoring the aftermath.

Right now, Caron is ensuring that all toxins in the fish are removed before they are turned into compost.

“The composting process should take care of any toxins,” he said, holding up a coin medallion engraved with King Harbor that Redondo Beach City Council members gave him during a recent public meeting to symbolize their appreciation. “No one has ever looked at the toxins [from a fish-die] during the composting process before.

“We know that in toxic blooms, the toxins don’t stay around forever, they get degraded by bacteria, light and increased temperatures. In the sea, there is a chemical and biological degradation of toxins, that we know. We don’t know if that applies to composting, but we’re about to find out.”

He’s not a fish behaviorist, so cannot say definitively what drove so many fish into the harbor at once. It could have been that predators chased the schools into the harbor, he said. Or possibly the domoic acid they ate caused the fish to become disoriented and swim erratically.

“You can speculate all sorts of things, but in fact nobody really knows what toxins will do to behavior in fish,” Caron said. “In the past, people have suggested it might cause swimming abnormalities but most recent evidence suggests that it probably doesn’t.”

Larger mammals such as sea lions who feed on toxic blooms do develop distinct neurological symptoms — resulting from nausea to convulsions and seizures to death, he said.

“There were thousands of birds feeding on the dead fish,” Caron said. “And we haven’t seen an abnormal increase in the mortality of birds or marine mammals, so that’s a good sign.”

Caron and his team’s research will also help Redondo Beach come up with solutions that may help the city avoid a similar situation in the future such as possibly putting an oxygenation system in place at the harbor. The Redondo Beach Patch reported that cleanup would cost the city at least $300,000.

“They may use it only once every three years or so,” Caron said of the aeration scheme, one of many possible solutions. "But they are going to avoid a costly problem.”

Provided by University of Southern California (news : web)

Lake Winnipeg, Canada

2011-04-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/TV/losing------the-lake-119110794.html

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Losing the lake

David Suzuki narrates CBC documentary on the failing health of Manitoba's freshwater jewel and its global implications

By: Brad Oswald

Enlarge Image

David Suzuki narrates CBC documentary on the failing health of Manitoba's freshwater jewel and its global implications

As TV-documentary titles go, it doesn't get much more direct, urgent and plaintive than this: Save My Lake.

That's the strongly worded sentiment contained in Sunday's special-edition broadcast of CBC's The Nature of Things with David Suzuki (7 p.m. on CBC), and the body of water so desperately in need of salvation is pretty close to home: Lake Winnipeg.

"Lake Winnipeg is a huge example of what is happening to lakes all over the world," says Kemp, co-director and executive producer of the film for Toronto-based Stornoway Productions. "This is happening to any place where you've got sewage effluent or fertilizer or agricultural runoff working its way through the water system. It's a universal issue, and it has to be dealt with.It is, says filmmaker Paul Kemp, a very local story with huge global implications.

"People have begun to wake up to the idea that the oceans are threatened, but maybe it's time to start thinking about the fresh water and the watersheds of our country, too."

Kemp, who was born in Winnipeg but currently resides in Toronto, said the inspiration for doing a documentary examination of Lake Winnipeg's plight came from a startling event that arose while engaged in the most mundane of cottage-country activities.

"A couple of years ago, I was walking with my son along one of the beaches at Victoria Beach, and he went into the water and came out covered, up to his neck, in green goop," he said. "It was just caked on. I thought, 'We're not going in there any more,' and made myself a promise that I was going to look into it.

"We've always had a cottage; I've been going to that neck of the woods -- either Victoria Beach or Albert Beach -- for coming up on 40 years of my life, and I'm 41 now. I remember, when I was growing up, canoeing in that water, even drinking the water, and never thinking too much about the water quality."

After doing a bit of research and consulting with a couple of scientists to try to understand the reasons for his green-slime scare, Kemp felt there was enough to the story to justify pitching it to the public broadcaster. He admits he was a bit surprised by the swift and certain level of support the story received.

Save My Lake couldn't come at a better time for folks who live and work on Lake Winnipeg, including Dr. Al Kristofferson, the Gimli-raised scientist who heads the Lake Winnipeg Research Consortium.

"Using satellite imagery, we've been able to go back a couple of decades, and in the last decade, we've seen consistent larger (algae) blooms, in some cases covering the entire north basin of the lake," said Kristofferson. "It has become very evident to all of us, and it's been over the last 15 or 20 years that it has become very noticeable."

In shooting Save My Lake last summer, Kemp and his film crew accompanied Kristofferson on one of their research trips around the lake, during which they collected water samples and core specimens from the lake's bottom. The evidence they found suggests that Lake Winnipeg's downward spiral may have begun much earlier than most observers believe.

"One way you can actually go back in time is to take a core sample of the sediment of the lake," he explained. "You take a cylinder and drive it down into the sediment, and the farther down you go, the farther back in time you go. There's a core that was taken in the north basin in 1994, and that core, if you examine it carefully, indicates that this problem isn't something that just happened in the last 20 years. This is something that has been building for the last 50 years."

To say the least, working on this film was an eye-opening experience for Kemp. He said the most interesting -- and, from an environmental perspective, alarming -- aspect of his Lake Winnipeg education has been learning the massive scope of the land mass that empties into the lake.

"I didn't realize how big the watershed of Lake Winnipeg is," he said. "I didn't realize that if you flush your toilet in Calgary or Banff, it's eventually going to work its way to Lake Winnipeg. Lake Winnipeg is the end of the pipe for some massive rivers -- even the Bow River and the South Saskatchewan River make their way to the lake.

"I knew about the Red and the Assiniboine and the Winnipeg River, because I grew up there, but I guess I didn't realize that whatever flows off of every farm in Western Canada ends up working its way to the lake.... (The watershed) actually goes through four provinces and four states."

As alarming as the information in Save My Lake seems, both Kemp and Kristofferson agree that there is reason for optimism. The issue has been identified; action is being taken; and, as the success of efforts to rehabilitate Lake Erie a couple of decades ago has shown, Lake Winnipeg's current algae-bloom crisis needs to be viewed as a solvable problem.

"I hope we start to recognize that we're all part of the problem, and we can all be part of the solution," said Kemp. "It sounds like a cliché, but the fact is that everything we do -- from the soap we use to the fertilizer that goes on our farmland to where our sewage goes -- has to be looked at.... It's a very difficult issue, because there are so many 'point sources' of pollution contributing to the problem."

Decline in Diatoms in Great Lakes

2011-03-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/89/i14/8914scene2.html

Algal productivity in the Great Lakes, the fixation of atmospheric carbon by algae, is largely a result of the size of the springtime bloom of diatoms. Diatoms are algae that pull silica out of the water column to encase themselves in intricate glass coatings, Evans explains. "The amount of silica removed by the bloom has long been used as an indicator of algal production in the Great Lakes," she says.

Mining data on silica concentrations collected over the past 30 years, Evans and her colleagues determined that algal production was about 80% lower in 2008 than in the 1980s and 1990s. The decline began in the mid-1990s after zebra and quagga mussels invaded the lakes. The study estimates that mussels consume up to 74% of new spring algae. When the foundation of a food web is depleted, Evans says, populations of the fish at the top of the web can suffer.

Published paper - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es103892w

Phytoplankton production is an important factor in determining both ecosystem stability and the provision of ecosystem goods and services. The expansive and economically important North American Great Lakes are subjected to multiple stressors and understanding their responses to those stresses is important for understanding system-wide ecological controls. Here we show gradual increases in spring silica concentration (an indicator of decreasing growth of the dominant diatoms) in all basins of Lakes Michigan and Huron (USA and Canadian waters) between 1983 and 2008. These changes indicate the lakes have undergone gradual oligotrophication coincident with and anticipated by nutrient management implementation. Slow declines in seasonal drawdown of silica (proxy for seasonal phytoplankton production) also occurred, until recent years, when lake-wide responses were punctuated by abrupt decreases, putting them in the range of oligotrophic Lake Superior. The timing of these dramatic production drops is coincident with expansion of populations of invasive dreissenid mussels, particularly quagga mussels, in each basin. The combined effect of nutrient mitigation and invasive species expansion demonstrates the challenges facing large-scale ecosystems and suggest the need for new management regimes for large ecosystems.

Melting ice reveals several winter fish kills in Iowa’s lakes, ponds

2011-03-30T06:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.newtondailynews.com/articles/2011/03/27/r_ywoapkzeq5upkd6b8o3ya/index.xml

Melting ice reveals several winter fish kills in Iowa’s lakes, ponds.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has received numerous reports of dead fish in lakes and ponds across Iowa as the ice cover disappears for another year.

These winter fish kills have been reported at Swan Lake (Carroll), Badger Creek Lake (Madison), Clark Lake (Cerro Gordo), Kuhn Wildlife Pond (Cerro Gordo), Pilot Knob Pond (Winnebago), Alice Wyth Lake (Black Hawk), Middle Sabula and Green Island lakes (Jackson), Credit Island Lagoon (Scott), and a storm water retention pond in Guttenberg.

Fisheries staff are also watching lakes and ponds with low oxygen levels that are at risk of having a winter fish kill. Many north Iowa lakes and ponds are still under ice, so additional winter kills are likely.

Winter kills happen when a combination of ice and snow blocks sunlight from reaching aquatic plants, which in turn, stop producing oxygen. The longer the snow and ice cover lasts, the less oxygen is in the water.

“Winter kills are rarely complete kills. We get a lot of calls from farm pond owners who think they lost all of their fish in their pond to winter kill. Our advice to them is to fish the pond in the spring, note the species, number and size of what you catch and talk to their local fisheries biologist about the health of the pond,” said Joe Larscheid, chief of the fisheries bureau for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

“What is important to understand it that this is a natural phenomenon and has been occurring in lakes, ponds and river backwaters throughout our history,” Larscheid said. “On the positive side, winter kills create a surplus of food that allows the remaining fish to experience rapid growth over the following year or two.”

Winter kills are visible shortly after ice out when fish that died during the winter float and are blown to shore. In certain lakes, like Rathbun, Black Hawk, Storm and Coralville, these dead fish are often a source of food for channel catfish that will go on a feeding spree. Many anglers see this as an early season fishing opportunity for trophy sized channel catfish.

“Channel catfish are attracted to food that gives off a strong odor and these dead fish put off an odor that will bring in catfish from across the lake. We tell anglers to fish on the windblown shore this time of year because the dead fish will be there, followed closely by the catfish. This can be some of the best fishing of the year,” Larscheid said.

While Mother Nature may be responsible for many fish kills discovered after ice out, the Iowa DNR would like to make sure some other factor is not to blame.

“If in doubt, give your local fisheries biologist a call so we can discuss your situation,” Larscheid said.

Red Tides Research

2011-03-26T20:04:00.000-07:00

Red tide more harmful, study finds

BY ROB SHAW

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 26, 2011

TAMPA - It took 22 scientists from eight organizations, more than 500 volunteers and nearly $16 million in funding, but officials now have a better grasp on the effects of red tide.

They know now that the toxin can drift as far as a mile inland, meaning that the exposure has a much wider swath than originally thought.

They found that at least 12 different toxins are contained in red tide that can be harmful to people.

They also discovered an antitoxin currently being used to develop a drug to fight cystic fibrosis.

"I think it's tremendous," Barbara Kirkpatrick, senior scientist at Mote Marine Laboratory, said of the many findings of the decadelong study.

Mote worked with the University of North Carolina Wilmington, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the state Department of Health and other agencies in the most comprehensive study of red tide, the organism that blooms in the Gulf of Mexico, killing fish and fouling the air.

The drug-related discovery was one of the most exciting for Kirkpatrick. "It's just one of those awesome things that you can't predict in research," she said. "We were researching red tide and now we will help people with cystic fibrosis. That's just cool."

Researchers used to think that people visiting the beach would be OK as long as their exposure was short-lived. Now, Kirkpatrick said, they have found that someone with asthma who visits the beach for an hour during red tide can have problems for days.

They also learned that people inland as far as a mile can suffer ill-effects of red tide, she said.

"The next time we have red tide in town, our message will be a lot stronger," Kirkpatrick said. "Even mainlanders who are near the shore need to be more aware."

It's been five years since the last full-fledged outbreak of red tide.

"That's a Catch-22 when you are studying the critter," the Mote official said. "You actually want the critter to show up."

kmorelli@tampatrib.com

Dr James Barnard wins Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize

2011-03-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1117097/1/.html

SINGAPORE : The inventor of an eco-friendly method of treating used water has been named this year's Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize winner.

The international award recognises outstanding contributions towards solving global water problems.

It will be handed out at the Singapore International Water Week in July.

In fish farming, algae that grow in the water is an important part of the ecology - as a food source for the marine life. However, excessive algae bloom can quickly turn fatal.

Dr James Barnard, winner of the Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize, said: "Other organisms feed on the algae, fish feed on the other organisms, and of course we eat the fish. That is the normal chain of events.

"The main problem is when the system becomes imbalanced, the algae growth becomes excessive, and when it's excessive, it disturbs the water balance so the fish can no longer survive in it."

This happens when nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus are not removed from used water before being discharged into lakes and rivers.

In 2008, the outbreak of algae bloom in waters off China's Qingdao disrupted the Olympics sailing competition and damaged marine life.

Dr Barnard's technology, known as Biological Nutrient Removal, uses micro-organisms already present in the water to remove the nutrients.

Pioneered in the 1970s, this technology is currently used in thousands of water treatment plants worldwide.

It is more eco-friendly compared to traditional treatments as it does away with the use of resource-intensive chemicals. It can also result in up to 90 per cent of cost savings.

The Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize received a record 72 nominations from 29 countries this year. Dr Barnard's technology stood out from the competition for his innovative and cost-effectiveness in treating used water.

Dr Barnard said he would donate the S$300,000 cash prize to charity. The South African native also hopes to use the money to improve school systems in his country.

Past winners include Professor Gatze Lettinga from the Netherlands for his anaerobic technology for used water treatment, and Dr Andrew Benedek for pioneering low-pressure membranes.

Diatom and Oysters

2011-03-15T21:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.smsi.org/publications/mn4803-5.shtml

DIATOMS AND OYSTERS

by J. Bartholomew

From our good friend, J. Bartholomew, we have interesting news. Together with Dr. Hopkins, he is now engaged in oyster research at Biloxi, Miss. It seems that this bivalve delicacy is on the way out,or at least rapidly decreasing in numbers at this locality which is economically, as well as gastronomically, a great loss to the citizenry at large. It may be possible that polution by waste water from Freeport Sulphur Co. is the cause of the oyster demise; however, it may also be possible that there are other causes, hence, this research project.

One reason for which this project is most interesting to microscopists is the fact that young oysters find their main food supply in plankton of which diatoms are the most prominent inhabitants. One may almost say no diatoms , no oysters. Some curious observations have been made in this respect. Mr. Bartholomew reports that the Menhaden (a surface feeding fish of the herring family) is quite a consumer of diatoms. He writes as follows: "You will probably be astonished to know that a 200 millimeter beaker of Menhaden intestines will frequently yield, after cleaning 25 millimeter of diatoms. Years ago, I thought I was a collector but my hat is off to the Menhaden."

"It is possible to set up an oyster control under laboratory conditions, feed him for 24 hours in natural seawater rich in plankton, take him out at the end of the period, scrub him, sterilize him and put him into filtered sea water and let him deficate for 24 hours and then make complete diatom studies of what has actually passed through his intestines. These angles of course fascinate me. Of the 60 odd genera and perhaps 100 species, common in townet-takes and the studies of the mud bottom, darned if the little brat does not confine himself almost wholly to Melosira, several species Cosciusdiscus, goodness knows how many varied species and Navicula - virtually all the strictly linears he rejects and even among the Navicula will only pick the nearly oval shapes. Also in studying sizes, if the Cosciusdiscus, for instance, will average a hundred to one hundred and fifty microns in natural sea water, the little skunk will ingest nothing beyond 50 or 60 microns. We are now ready to set up pure cultures in Miguel solution and grow the genera and species that the oysters accept. We will then treat the cultures in various percentages of bleedwater to see how it affects the growth of the diatoms themselves!

Mr. Bartholomew is inviting our diatom interested readers to cooperate with him in this project, particularly the taxonomitical assistance would be helpful.If you feel you can be of help, kindly contact J. E. Nielsen, 5517 Drexel Ave., Chicago 37.

J.E.N.

Biogeochemical Cycles

2011-03-10T08:48:00.000-08:00

A very comprehensive presentation on Biogeochemical cycles

http://www.scribd.com/doc/50365477/3/Algae-and-the-Silicon-Cycle

Silicon, Carbon / Oxygen, Nitrogen, Sulfur cycles are discussed.

Nualgi - Diatom Algae for Bio-remediation and Biodiesel

Vero Beach - Algal bloom

Great Lakes: Quagga mussels -spit out Microcystis

Lake Erie Algae, Ice, Make a Nice Mix in Winter

Diatom

Diatoms are the most important group of photosynthetic eukaryotes

Lakes and Green House Gases

Diatom Slide show

Water Pollution due to farming - Ohio

The Aerobic Difference

Limnology -Lake Horowhenua

Arctic Methane Emergency Group

Battelle Interim Report on GLSM

Arctic Methane

Diatom and Fish

Lipids - Copepods

NEWS

Copepods eat their own weight belts

Florida Slime Crime Tracker

Biogeochemical significance of silicon in the world oceans

MARINE PLANKTON DIATOMS OF THE WEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA

What's an Abundant Potential Food Source That We Haven't Developed a Taste for Yet?

What's an Abundant Potential Food Source That We Haven't Developed a Taste for Yet?

Red Tide Bioluminescence gives spectacular neon blue light show [Video]

Daphnia - Lake Lawnmowers

Loss of ‘Lake Lawnmowers’ Leads to Algae Blooms

Jellyfish Invasion

Jellyfish Invasion

Great Barrier Reef - Algal Blooms

References

Barents Sea - Algal Bloom

Related Reading

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Friday, August 19, 2011

Algal Bloom in NY/NJ Bight: Help Needed!

Omega-3 taken in pregnancy could protect infants' health: study

Agricultural pollution blamed for Lake Erie blooms, fish woes

Agricultural pollution blamed for Lake Erie blooms, fish woes

Published: Friday, July 29, 2011, 3:05 PM Updated: Friday, July 29, 2011, 3:13 PM

Despite bit of a stench, Franklin's water is harmless

Despite bit of a stench, Franklin's water is harmless

Kevin Walters | The Tennessean

China Red Tides

China reports 24 red tides in 1st half of 2011

Updated: 2011-07-14 21:57

(Xinhua)

"Red Tide" bioluminescence phenomenon

Krill provide iron for Southern Ocean: study

Carbon Cycle

The Carbon Cycle

All the Pretty Jellyfish

All the Pretty Jellyfish

Video captures majestic migrations of Mastigias

Stephen Carpenter and the 2011 Stockholm Water Prize

Stephen Carpenter and the 2011 Stockholm Water Prize

Researchers find eco-friendly chemical for toxic algae control - CSMCRI

Researchers find eco-friendly chemical for toxic algae control

Hutt River, New Zealand

Hutt River clogged with ooze and toxic algae

Ford Lake, Michigan - Whole Lake Experiment

US Water problems - NY Times report

Harmful Algal Blooms

Pyrite - nano iron in oceans

Algal bloom photos

Algae blooms creating a Canning River in Australia

Mass. bans shellfishing in parts of Cape Cod - due to Red Tide

Mass. bans shellfishing in parts of Cape Cod

Tilapia in Sewage Ponds

Spring Lake - HAB - Alum

Spring Lake waterfront community optimistic for alum’s prolonged progress

Redondo Beach, California Fish Kill

Nothing fishy about sardine kill

Lake Winnipeg, Canada

Losing the lake

David Suzuki narrates CBC documentary on the failing health of Manitoba's freshwater jewel and its global implications

Decline in Diatoms in Great Lakes

Melting ice reveals several winter fish kills in Iowa’s lakes, ponds

Melting ice reveals several winter fish kills in Iowa’s lakes, ponds.

Melting ice reveals several winter fish kills in Iowa’s lakes, ponds.

Red Tides Research