This is one of the few reports that clearly state that Diatoms have declined and other phytoplankton have increased.

http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/articles/view/3189

Shift in Arabian Sea Plankton May Threaten Fisheries

Growing "Dead Zone" Could Short-Circuit Food Chain

2014-09-09

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A growing "dead zone" in the middle of the Arabian Sea has allowed plankton uniquely suited to low- oxygen water to take over the base of the food chain. Their rise to dominance over the last decade could be disastrous for the predator fish that sustain 120 million people living on the sea's edge.

The rise of Noctiluca scintillans at the base of the Arabian Sea food chain threatens fisheries in Oman and other countries bordering the sea. (Joaquim Goes)

Scientists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and their colleagues are the first to document the rapid rise of green Noctiluca scintillans, an unusual dinoflagellate that eats other plankton and draws energy from the sun via microscopic algae living within its cells. Noctiluca's thick blooms color the Arabian Sea an emerald green each winter, from the shores of Oman on the west, to India and Pakistan on the east.

In a study published this week in Nature Communications, the researchers show how the millions of green algae living within Noctiluca's cells allow it to exploit an oxygen-starved dead zone the size of Texas. They hypothesize that a tide of nutrient-rich sewage flowing from booming cities on the Arabian Sea is expanding the dead zone and feeding Noctiluca's growth.

"These blooms are massive, appear year after year, and could be devastating to the Arabian Sea ecosystem over the long-term," said the study's lead author, Helga do Rosario Gomes, a biogeochemist at Lamont-Doherty.

Winter blooms of Noctiluca are so vast they can be seen from space. (Norman Kuring, NASA)

Until recently, photosynthetic diatoms supported the Arabian Sea food chain. Zooplankton grazed on the diatoms, a type of algae, and were in turn eaten by fish. In the early 2000s, it all changed. The researchers began to see vast blooms ofNoctiluca and a steep drop in diatoms and dissolved oxygen in the water column. Within a decade, Noctiluca had virtually replaced diatoms at the base of the food chain, marking the start of a colossal ecosystem shift.

Green Noctiluca lives in the tropics while its close relative, red Noctiluca scintillans, whose blooms can sometimes kill fish with their high ammonia content, prefers temperate waters. Green Noctiluca is remarkably willing to eat anything. It feeds on other plankton, living or dead, flushing diatoms and other plankton into its gullet with a flick of its flagellum. It also draws energy from the millions of green algae, or "endosymbionts," living within its transparent cell walls. The algae fix carbon from sunlight and pass the energy, like rent, on to their host.

A varied diet gives Noctiluca its edge. "They can swim down to find nutrients, up to find light, and they can eat other small organisms," said Sharon Smith, a plankton ecologist at the University of Miami who works in the Arabian Sea but was not involved in the study.

To understand the key to Noctiluca's success, the researchers spent three successive winters aboard the Indian research ship Sagar Sampada, starting in 2009. Sailing off the coast of Goa, they sampled blooms and performed experiments. Putting Noctilucaand itsdiatom competitors in oxygen-starved water they found that Noctiluca's carbon-fixation rate rose by up to 300 percent while the diatoms' fell by nearly as much. They also found Noctiluca grew faster in light than in dark, thanks to its sun-loving endosymbiont-algae, which are thought to have evolved 1.3 billion years ago on an oxygen-scarce Earth.

The researchers tried to also identify Noctiluca's predators. They had heard reports of Omani fishermen seeing more gelatinous salps, jellyfish and sea turtles. Could they be eating the Noctiluca? Scooping up several salps from the sea, the researchers dropped them into buckets of seawater thick with Noctiluca blooms. In an hour, the water became visibly clearer. By measuring the drop in chlorophyll, the researchers estimated that one salp can polish off about two-thirds of a bucket of Noctiluca in an hour.  

"They chowed on Noctiluca, like rabbits in a lettuce patch," said Gomes. "This is a creature that few other marine animals want to eat."

Noctiluca is too big for the crustacean grazers that normally feed on diatoms, leading to concerns that it could spawn an alternate food chain lacking the predator fish people like to eat.  Many fisheries in the Arabian Sea are already on a slow decline. Eighty-five percent of fishermen surveyed in the fishing-dependent states of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra in India reported a smaller catch from 20 years and 12 years earlier, according to a 2014 study in the journal Oryx. Similarly, a rise in puffer fish off the coast of the Indian state of Kerala has been attributed to a crash in predator cobia fish since 2007, according to a 2013 study in Current Science. In Oman, the catch of large fish fell 18 percent in 2013 from the year before, the Times of Oman reported.

When Noctiluca isn't feasting on plankton, it grabs free energy from the millions of green algae living within its cells. (Joaquim Goes)

Whether Noctiluca or overfishing is to blame, one major factor stands out: massive sewage flows into the Arabian Sea as the coastal population has exploded. As the study authors point out, Mumbai's population has doubled to 21 million in the last decade. The region now sends 63 tons of nitrogen and 11 tons of phosphorus into the Arabian Sea each day. Karachi's 15 million people send 70 percent of their wastewater into the sea untreated. Much of the fertilizer used to boost yields on farms in South Asia also eventually washes into rivers that drain into the sea.

"All of these cities are growing so rapidly they don't have the capacity to treat their sewage," said study coauthor Joaquim Goes, a biogeochemist at Lamont-Doherty. "The amount of material being discharged is humongous."

From the Gulf of Mexico to Chesapeake Bay, dead zones and degraded fisheries are on the rise globally. Doubling in size each decade, and now covering more than 95,000 square miles, they are "probably a key stressor on marine ecosystems," according toa 2008 study in Science. Shifting ocean currents due to climate change can make the problem worse by dredging up nutrients from the ocean bottom.

The Arabian Sea fishery may already be in decline. In Goa, India, women sort through the morning catch. (Joaquim Goes)

In the Arabian Sea, stronger summer monsoon winds have boosted algae growth by bringing more nutrients from the deep ocean to the surface. In a2005 study in Science, Goes, Gomes and colleagues showed that biomass from summer blooms off Somalia, Yemen and Oman, jumped nearly 350 percent between 1997 and 2004. They hypothesize that receding snow cover in the Himalaya-Tibetan plateau is making the Indian subcontinent hotter in summer compared to the Arabian Sea, strengthening the winds that blow toward India, bringing up more nutrients off Somalia, Yemen and Oman.

The researchers expected gentler monsoon winds in winter, as the process reversed itself, leading to fewer algae blooms. But NASA satellite maps showed just the opposite: more winter blooms. After several years of sampling what they thought were sporadic Noctiluca blooms, the researchers realized in 2006 that the blooms seen from space were not diatoms but recurring Noctiluca blooms.

They wondered if falling oxygen levels could explain the diatom-to-Noctiluca shift. Sure enough, the experiments aboard theSagar Sampada seemed toconfirm their hypothesis.

The study has attributed much of Noctiluca's rise to growing sewage flows into the Arabian Sea, an intriguing connection that should be followed up on, says Andrew Juhl, a microbiologist at Lamont-Doherty who was not involved in the study. "It's unusual for Noctiluca to bloom in the open sea and return year after year," he said "All of these observations suggest that something dramatic has changed in the Arabian Sea."

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA, Indian Space Research Organization and India's Council of Industrial Research. Other authors: Prabhu Matondkar, National Institute of Oceanography in Goa; Edward Buskey, University of Texas at Austin; Subhajit Basu, Goa University; Sushma Parab, Kent State University and Prasad Thoppil, Stennis Space Center.

Toxic algae out break in 2013 fooled U.S. experts

http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2013/11/09/Toxic-algae-out-break-in-2013-fooled-U-S-experts.html

Toxic algae out break in 2013 fooled U.S. experts

Western Lake Erie’s 2013 toxic algae outbreak was worse than expected, fooling the most advanced scientific prediction model the federal government has developed and covering more of the lake’s open water than any of the recent outbreaks except the 2011 record.

The University of Toledo’s top algae researcher, Tom Bridgeman, an associate professor of environmental science and a researcher at UT’s Lake Erie Center, presented a graphic that reflected that information at the UT College of Law’s 13th annual Great Lakes water-law conference on Friday.

The graphic showed this year’s bloom — while not a record-setter — went well beyond the Lake Erie islands and fanned out across more of the lake than expected. It didn’t get past Cleveland and penetrate the lake’s central basin as did the 2011 outbreak.

“The 2013 bloom was second only to 2011 in the open water,” Mr. Bridgeman told nearly 300 people who attended the seminar.

Another noteworthy feature of this year’s bloom: It was so dense along Lake Erie’s southern shoreline that a lot of it spent extended time underneath the water instead of on its surface.

High winds mixed it deep into the water. The lake’s predominant form of toxic algae, microcystis, tends to bubble up and float to the surface as it releases gases. But the mat was so thick that the weight of it kept a lot of the algae deep under water, Mr. Bridgeman said.

That helps explain why the water-treatment plant in Ottawa County’s Carroll Township, which serves 2,000 people, became so overwhelmed by the algae’s toxin, microcystin, that superintendent Henry Biggert took the unprecedented action of shutting it down. Mr. Biggert had service switched over temporarily in September to the system that serves the Port Clinton area.

That was the first time in Ohio history that a Lake Erie water-treatment plant was taken offline because of algae.

The Toledo water-treatment plant, northwest Ohio’s largest and most sophisticated, was able to neutralize the algae. But plant operators there also noticed higher-than-normal spikes and ended up getting $1 million more in emergency funds from Toledo City Council to ward off the threat.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, using a newly developed scientific model, accurately predicted the 2013 bloom would be “significant,” but did not anticipate it being as bad as it was.

“They got close, but they underestimated what the bloom actually was,” Mr. Bridgeman said.

In a 110-page report planned for release later this month, a state task force trying to reduce western Lake Erie’s toxic algae will call for a 40 percent reduction in all forms of phosphorus entering northwest Ohio waterways.

The Ohio Phosphorus Task Force’s report, an update to its initial 2010 study, could affect farmers, sewage plant operators, large land-based businesses such as golf courses, and homeowners — anyone who uses or manages large amounts of fertilizers.

State and federal legislators are expected to use the task force recommendations when deciding whether to expand existing laws or adopt new ones.

Efforts could include a stronger focus on mixing nutrients in farm soil to reduce agricultural runoff into waterways, tighter controls on animal manure — including a ban on winter application — and an effort to fix sewage overflows faster.

The recommendations have been anticipated for months. They were made public by Mr. Bridgeman at the conference.

Mr. Bridgeman said the state task force chairman, Ohio Lake Erie Commission Executive Director Gail Hesse, gave him permission to release an excerpt of the report.

The seminar included discussions of similar algae problems in other parts of America, such as Florida, the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Cheasapeake Bay.

“In Florida, we focus on the public-health threat,” said Monica Reimer, a Tallahassee lawyer employed by Earthjustice, one of the nation’s largest environmental law groups. “It’s not good enough to say fish are dead. Algae’s a public health threat.”

She said dozens of manatees died in the state in 2013 because they ingested toxic algae.

Emily Collins, an Ohio native who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, likened the Cheasapeake Bay’s ecology to that of the Great Lakes.

She said people don’t realize how long it can take a system to recover once it’s been fouled: The full benefit of a 2009 executive order to clean the Cheasapeake, signed by President Obama shortly after he entered the White House, could take 20 to 40 years beyond the target date of 2025 for many of the pollution controls, Ms. Collins said.

Former Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Chris Korleski, who leads the U.S. EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office in Chicago, was the keynote speaker. He said the task of restoring the Great Lakes will take decades, even with $1.3 billion allocated under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative since 2010 to address issues such as algae and other forms of pollution, as well as invasive species.

Climate change complicates restoration efforts, Mr. Korleski said, noting that scientists now believe the greatest factor for algae is the amount of rain that falls between March 1 and June 30.

“Storms don’t feel like they did when I was a kid. They just don’t. And I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon,” Mr. Korleski said.

“My prediction,” he added, “is we will continue to wrestle with this [algae] issue, we will continue to talk, and — over time — we will make progress.”

http://michiganradio.org/post/mystery-bottom-great-lakes-food-web

A mystery at the bottom of the Great Lakes food web

There’s a mystery at the very bottom of the Great Lakes food web.

Phytoplankton – the algae that are food for plankton which in turn feed fish – are behaving strangely. They’re surrounded by a nutrient they need to grow. But for some reason, they’re not using it.

The puzzle has big implications for how scientists think about the Great Lakes’ future in a warming world.

Tiny creatures

It’s a crisp sunny morning on the St. Lawrence River. All of the Great Lakes’ water flows through here on its way to the ocean.

Michael Twiss is leaning over the edge of his research boat, his face just a couple inches from the water’s surface. He swishes the water like he’s sniffing fine wine.

“Yup, there’s a fall bloom going on, because we’re at the end of the summer.”

DAVID: “That’s those little sparkly crystals in the water?”

“Yes, that’s what you’re seeing right there. Those are algae.”

Twiss is a limnologist at Clarkson University. He studies algae like this – the bottom of the food web that sustains the Great Lakes’ fishery.

The algae – also called phytoplankton – like to eat nitrate – nitrogen plus oxygen. In all of Great Lakes, there’s loads of nitrate. But get this. Twiss says they’re not eating it.

"The mystery is akin to being at a free smorgasbord and ordering out for pizza. You're going to have to wait longer to get your food, and you're going to have to pay for it."

“The mystery is akin to being at a free smorgasbord and ordering out for pizza. You’re going to have to wait longer to get your food, and you’re going to have to pay for it. So why aren’t they using this nutrient that’s available to them?”

Why should we care what the critters eat?

There are two reasons why this matters. First, if they ate more nitrate, they’d grow and become more food for fish.

Second, the algae would also eat more carbon from the atmosphere, just like trees do through photosynthesis.

“These lakes, which hold 20% of the world’s fresh water, play an important role in sequestering carbon and taking it out of the atmosphere and into the bottom of the lakes. That’s a natural process.”

In fact, the Great Lakes do a better job proportionally at sucking up carbon than the ocean does.

So, if only we could get those phytoplankton to eat more nitrate, we’d have more fish and we’d alleviate climate change at the same time, right?

Not so fast. Climate change cuts both ways.

Andy Bramburger is a researcher at the St. Lawrence River Institute in Cornwall, Ontario. He says the warmer climate is changing the kind of algae in the Lakes – from the kind that’s good for fish to the kind that causes toxic algal blooms and kills fish.

“With climate change and with these fluctuations in temperatures, and the rapid warming we’ve been seeing in the early parts of the spring and summer in recent years, we are tipping the balance in favor of algae that are not favorable to our use of waterways,” he says.

The detective cracks the case... a little

Michael Twiss recently made a tiny breakthrough in the phytoplankton mystery. Phytoplankton also need trace metals to eat the nitrate. So when he sprinkled the trace metal molybdenum into water samples – poof – the algae feasted like it was a smorgasbord.

Twiss’ hypothesis is that invasive species like zebra mussels have sucked too many metals and other nutrients out of the water. Twiss says it may be a new paradigm.

“A shift in the way the ecosystem is operating, and it’s up to us to understand how it operates so we can predict what will happen in the future, and so we can manage for change, particularly climate change.”

To protect our clean waters, our fishery, and our relationship with the Great Lakes in the face of climate change, scientists will have to puzzle out the mysteries at the bottom of the food web."

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

We have understood the food web and invented a Nano Silica based micro nutrient product to grow Diatom Algae in large lakes.

http://www.co2science.org/subject/o/summaries/acidificationdiatoms.php

Ocean Acidification (Effects on Marine Plants: Phytoplankton, Diatoms) -- Summary
In conclusion, and has been found to be the case for essentially all types of marine phytoplankton, the real-world data that have been obtained to date suggest that earth's diatoms will manage just fine as the air's CO2 content continues to climb to ever-greater heights. And as diatoms serve as primary producers in numerous marine food chains, the several trophic levels above them should also be similarly benefited by the dreaded phenomenon of "ocean acidification."

http://sites.duke.edu/writing20_12_f2011/2011/09/05/ocean-acidification-and-diatoms/

Ocean Acidification and Diatoms

Another experimented conducted entailed the creation of an equilibrium of atmospheric carbon dioxide with bubbled aqueous carbon dioxide. When the carbon dioxide was made to be twice that of normal conditions, consumption increased by 27%. When the carbon dioxide was tripled, the diatoms’ consumption was 39% higher. Estimates say that such carbon dioxide consumption as that described here may in have kept atmospheric levels to 90% of what they would be otherwise since start of the industrial revolution. In yet another study, it was found that certain species of diatoms grow 20% faster when exposed to increased carbon dioxide.

This potentially positive consequence of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is not nearly enough to outweigh the negative results of anthropogenic carbon dioxide. Some algae do not, in fact, benefit from increased levels of carbon dioxide. Zooxanthellae, for example, exist symbiotically with coral reefs. If the zooxanthellae colonies grow too large, then they will be doing so at the expense of their coral homes. Some species of phytoplankton may react poorly to the increased acidity. Then we must factor in things such as coral bleaching, coastal erosion, decalcification, and the loss of biodiversity. Indeed, for every possible upside that comes from ocean acidification, it seems that there are two potentially devastating ramifications.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121017-northernmost-lake-greenland-global-warming-science-environment/

Northernmost Lake Reappears Due to Warming

Algae in Greenland lake bouncing back after deep freeze, study finds.

Kate Andries

National Geographic News

Published October 17, 2012

The world's northernmost lake, situated near the coast ofGreenland (map), is coming back to life.

Populations of microscopic algae, called diatoms, have been absent from the lake Kaffeklubben Sø for over 2,000 years. But a new study has found that the diatoms are returning, thanks to global warming.

"It's a pure climate change story," said study co-author Bianca Perren, a paleoecologist at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon, France, who specializes in Arctic environmental change (see pictures).

Diatoms were once abundant in Kaffeklubben Sø, which was formed about 3,500 years ago after glacial retreats created numerous small lakes on the coastal plain.

As surrounding temperatures cooled, diatom populations decreased until they vanished some 2,400 years ago, Perren explained.

"Until about 1920, [the lake] was basically in a deep freeze," she said.

Ice completely covered its surface, cutting off any sunlight that had previously penetrated into the water. This lack of light, along with dropping temperatures, killed off the organisms beneath the surface.

(Also see "Global Warming Burning Lakes?")

Strong Evidence for Climate Change

Scientists began seeing a growth in the number of diatoms in the lake between 1960 and 1970 as summer temperatures began gradually increasing—varying by less than a degree throughout the years. By 1980, the diatom population had exploded.

A layer of ice three-to-six feet thick (one-to-two meters thick) covers the lake year-round, though the rising summer temperatures—now averaging around 34 degrees Fahrenheit (1.6 degrees Celsius)—cause some of the ice to melt, especially around the shore.

Temperaturewise, several degrees Celsius in northern Greenland makes a critical difference, said Perren. The warmer summer temperatures and ice meltage allow enough light into the lake so that life can grow.

A large portion of the study sought to determine if the surge in diatom population was caused in part by nitrogen pollution, which can cause algae to bloom. But no evidence of pollution—nitrogen or otherwise—was found in Kaffeklubben Sø, suggesting that the current rise in diatom population is due to climate change alone. (Take a global warming quiz.)

Jack Williams, director of the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, agreed, noting that the Kaffeklubben Sø study made a strong argument that this is a climate-driven change rather than a nutrient-driven change.

The current diatom population in Kaffeklubben Sø is the highest in recent memory, according to the study authors.

"We certainly expected to see some sort of biological growth," added study co-author Colin Cooke, a geoscientist at Yale University, added. "I didn't expect to see such a large response."

The northernmost lake study appears in the November issue of Geology Journal.

Sustainable Aquaculture - Scottish Marine Institute

http://www.smi.ac.uk/adam-hughes/dr-adam-hughes/?searchterm=Dr%20Adam%20Hughes

"Turning waste into a useful product is the basic premise of integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA). By using waste products from fin-fish aquaculture as food and nutrients for other organisms then we can reap the dual benefits of reduced pollution and increased productivity. The principle is simple, the practice however is complex,: ongoing research at the Scottish Marine Institute aims to overcome some of these complexities and bridge the gap between theoretical concept and industrial application."

Nualgi simplifies the use of animal waste to grow diatoms and since diatoms are good food for fin fish, they benefit from the natural feed.

Nualgi Poster

Nualgi causes Diatom Algae to grow.

Diatoms consume Nutrients N and P, and CO2, and give Oxygen.

Aerobic bacteria consume Oxygen and give CO2.

Diatoms are consumed by Zooplankton and these by Fish, thus the food chain is completed.

Diatom Slide show

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

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

Krill provide iron for Southern Ocean: study

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.

Decline in Diatoms in Great Lakes

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.

Algae for a Second Green Revolution

Grand Lake, Ohio - Update

http://www.wapakdailynews.com/content/view/215785/27/

Officials unveil information to help restore lake

Thursday, 09 September 2010

By MIKE BURKHOLDER Staff Writer CELINA — Ohio State officials Tuesday night unveiled another piece in the puzzle in the fight to help restore the water quality of Grand Lake St. Marys. Directors of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), Ohio Department of Health and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held a public forum at the Celina Fieldhouse as a way to brief residents regarding a pair of pilot projects on the lake. Several hundred people who attended the meeting were allowed to submit questions to a moderator, which were then answered by members of the panel. Russ Gibson, with the Ohio EPA, gave a brief presentation regarding the alum dosing test project. The project, which is slated to begin Sept. 20, calls for liquid alum to be applied to six locations along the lake — West Beach, Harmon’s Channel, 4-H Camp, West Bank boat ramp, Otterbein channel No. 1 and Otterbein channel No. 2 — for a total of 53 acres. “It’s designed to provide some near-term relief to reducing the nutrient loads that are within the lake itself,” Gibson said. When introduced into the water column, the alum will bind with the phosphorus and force it to the bottom of the lake. The alum will not add to the sediment at the bottom of the lake, and Gibson said the compound poses no risks to humans, fish or other animals. “It’s something that has been safely used in nearly every drinking water supply and treatment system — the city of Celina uses alum every day,” Gibson said. “It’s been used in more than 150 lakes successfully across the country. “We have the literature to support that alum will be successful in helping to reduce the internal phosphorus load that is in the lake,” he said. “Just to give you an idea, Grand Lake St. Marys has a very, very high phosphorus level. Our goal with this project is to reduce the internal phosphorus and inactivate those levels by 60 to 85 percent. That is substantial.” Gibson encouraged residents to come out Sept. 20 to witness the start of the four-day project. He also reassured the crowd the alum dosing poses zero risk to people. “There is no harm in coming out and watching,” Gibson said. “If you happen to be around the lake one of those days, drive by and look at what’s going on.” The new project is different than the one proposed by Gov. Ted Strickland in July. That project called for two sites of 20 acres a piece. “We just really had a very difficult time finding two different sites that were that large,” Gibson said. “So we elected to instead do six sites that totaled 54 acres.” Once the alum is applied via a barge, the water will instantly turn milky. Within two hours, Gibson said the results will be noticeable. “As that alum settles down through the water column, it’s basically stripping the water of the phosphorus and other nutrients that are in that water column and the water will become remarkably clear,” Gibson said. “We do not expect Grand Lake St. Marys to become gem clear. The demonstration sites, for some period of time, will be very clear.” The second pilot project, which is being conducted by Algaeventure, of Columbus, involves introducing silica into the water column with the hopes of flipping the bad algae into diatoms. Diatoms are a species of algae that do not produce toxins and if the conditions are right, will dominate harmful algae. That project started last week at a site near the city of Celina. During the question-and-answer session, panel members handled a variety of questions. Some ranged from dredging the entire lake to the harmful side effects of alum. One resident asked what is being done to rid the lake of geese. ODNR Director Sean Logan said geese produce waste approximately 28 times a day and there are more than 2,000 of them living around the lake. “We believe that we have a resident population of 2,500,” Logan said. “We will continue, through controlled hunts in designated locations, to continue to reduce the population.” The question of opening up the spillway to flush out the lake was posed to the panel. Logan said that was not a viable option and would produce little, if any, benefit. “The average length of time the water in Grand Lake St. Marys takes to come in and come out is 1.3 years,” Logan said. Logan also said opening the spillway would fail to reduce the internal loading in the lake — a root cause of the algae bloom problems during the past two years. Logan said the depth also is as hurdle. “Because of its shallowness, it does not have the same stratification that would lead you to believe or would it allow such exchange of water as the question asks,” Logan said. “You could open up both tubes for 24 hours and only get 1 inch drop.” Dredging also was brought up. Logan said state official will focus on spot dredging near tributaries that lead into the lake. “Right now, in Montezuma Bay, we are going to go a little deeper where we already have a spoil site available and there is already an active dredging project in place,” Logan said. “The key to dredging is the spoil site. Where do you put the dredged material to allow it to dewater in a quick enough fashion so that you don’t have water being your capacity. We are open to all sorts of suggestions.” Logan said state officials are open to help solving the problem. However, he again stressed that dredging the entire lake is not a viable option. “We do need your help,” Logan said. “We need help in identifying upload disposal sites, I think we should start with Prairie Creek. We need upload land owners to help identify where we can have disposal of this material.” Winter manure application procedures also were posed to the panel. Logan said any manure application between Dec. 15 and March 15 would have to comply with a series of guidelines in order to be allowed. In two years, Logan said there will be a ban on winter manure applications. “The proper crop to uptake the nutrients that are applied, set back distance from stream, the future weather and the soil,” Logan said of the requirements. “The soil will always tell you what it can handle and what it cannot handle.” Logan also stressed that the ultimate solution is in the hands of landowners, not politicians. “We all are part of the solution,” Logan said. “The ultimate, long-term solution to this problem does not lay with government, it lays with private landowners. You need to unite together and say that we want a better future and I know that you do. We just need to step up to the plate, each and every one of us.”

Last Updated ( Thursday, 09 September 2010 )

Nutrient controls contributing to Karenia Brevis blooms in the Gulf of Mexico.

http://cprweb.marine.usf.edu/wp-content/pdfs/C&MMote-Lenes.pdf

Nutrient controls contributing to Karenia Brevis blooms in the Gulf of Mexico.

by Jason Lenes, et. al.

Slides 13, 14 and 15 discuss the results of a case study in 2001.

Increase in Si resulted in a 50% fall in K. brevis biomass.

Red Tides - Florida

Red Tide Control and Mitigation Program

http://www.start1.com/docs/CnM-Stakeholders-LRwcov.pdf

Pg 25

Biological control of Karenia brevi s toxicity

Georgia Institute of Technology, Julia Kubanek

PROJECT SNAPSHOT

Can other organisms break down red tide toxins? This study demonstrated that native Gulf

of Mexico phytoplankton species are capable of detoxifying waters containing red tide. The phytoplankton do not kill Karenia brevis cells, but they remove brevetoxin from the water column.

Introduction

Growing concern over Florida red tide impacts has motivated researchers to understand how blooms work and how to lessen their effects. There are several forms of brevetoxin (PbTx) produced by Karenia brevis. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have shown the amount of the most reduced 50-90% when competitive phytoplankton species are present. Further understanding how this process occurs is an important step towards developing a biological control for red tide toxicity.

Project goals

The main goals were to identify which phytoplankton competitors can degrade waterborne brevetoxins and to understand how this degradation occurs. Researchers aimed to determine whether adding live phytoplankton could be a natural biological control of Karenia brevis toxicity and whether this method could also benefit marine life.

Findings and accomplishments

Researchers learned that many phytoplankton competitors (across taxonomic groups, including

diatoms, cryptophytes, and dinoflagellates) can remove waterborne PbTx-2 (see Figure 1). Testing for removal of other brevetoxins by the diatom Skeletonema costatum showed that the detoxifying effect depends on the specific form of brevetoxin (for example, PbTx-2 and -1 were removed, but PbTx-3, -6, and -9 were not removed), suggesting that enzymes play a role in the removal of brevetoxins by competitors.

By adding brevetoxins to killed cultures of Skeletonema costatum and finding no loss of toxin,

researchers learned that live cells are required to remove brevetoxins from the water column, and that the toxin does not simply stick to cellular debris associated with the competitors. However, compounds (probably proteins) exuded by competitors are responsible for some toxin breakdown or removal.

Tests of how much Skeletonema costatum is needed to remove brevetoxins from the water showed that the quantity of competitor cells present has only a small impact on toxin removal. What is most important is the presence of competitor cells.

Experiments with marine invertebrates were also done to learn whether the effects of toxins on

marine life could also be reduced. Tests with brine shrimp (Artemia salina) showed that Skeletonema costatum reduced brevetoxins and removed all toxic effects on the brine shrimp at environmentally realistic concentrations. Tests with the sea anemone Aiptasia pallida included observing physical and behavioral responses as well as toxin levels. Results showed that Skeletonema costatum reduced, and in some cases completely protected against, the physiological damages of brevetoxin exposure.

Pg 26

The finding that Skeletonema costatum can reduce the toxic effects of brevetoxins on marine invertebrates supports using competitor phytoplankton species as control agents for Karenia brevis -- a mitigation strategy that not only will reduce waterborne brevetoxin levels but also could reduce negative impacts on ecosystems and marine wildlife.

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

Pg 31

Nutrient controls contributing to Karenia brevi s blooms in the Gulf of Mexico

University of South Florida, Jason Lenes

PROJECT SNAPSHOT

This project addresses one piece of the nutrient puzzle related to red tide. Researchers used computer models and experiments to show that increasing the amount of the nutrient silica in an ecosystem may favor the growth of more beneficial phytoplankton species rather than Karenia brevis.

Introduction

Understanding how Florida red tide blooms start, grow, and maintain themselves is key to finding ways to stop or reduce their impacts. Trichodesmium, a nitrogen-fixing marine microorganism, and rotting fish killed by brevetoxins are primary food sources for Karenia brevis in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. These nutrient sources provide nitrogen and phosphorus but not silica. Large amounts of silica continually enter the Gulf from Florida’s rivers.

Although Karenia brevis does not need silica to grow, competitive and faster-growing organisms in the Gulf do. In the early stages of a bloom, organisms that are close to sources of silica may be able to compete more effectively for nutrients. This competition may help slow the growth of Karenia brevis and its potential prey.

Project goals

The project used laboratory and field experiments and computer simulation models to test the role of silica in Karenia brevis growth. Researchers wanted to know how different types and amounts of nutrients available to Karenia brevis may favor growth of more beneficial species. This information can help explain how Karenia brevis blooms grow and maintain themselves in the Gulf, and possibly how altering types and amounts of nutrients might be used to control blooms.

Pg 32

...

To see whether the presence of silica resulted in competition for food sources, two test cases were run: (1) normal initial silica concentrations and (2) elevated initial silica concentrations.

In case 1, a Karenia brevis bloom began in June (see Figure 1a) in response to the “new” nitrogen provided by Trichodesmium. In late July, the bloom reached levels that would kill fish, which gave it nutrients from the rotting fish. The maximum Karenia brevis level predicted by HABSIM in early October was similar to what was seen in the 2001 bloom. Case 2 showed a similar pattern, but the higher concentrations of silica led to an increase in diatoms, which decreased the predicted overall Karenia brevis concentration by about 50 percent (see Figure 1b).

Potential applications

The project results and HABSIM are great starting points for bloom prediction. Future experiments will test how nutrients with and without silica can alter natural shore samples and will help show competition and dominance among co-occurring Gulf of Mexico phytoplankton species. These results will be used to further test HABSIM as a prediction tool. If models continue to show that increases in silica reduce Karenia brevis concentrations, then ways of changing the nutrient regime to treat and reduce blooms can be considered.

Whales and ocean iron fertilization

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/04/23/a-novel-geoengineering-idea-increase-the-oceans-quotient-of-whale-poop/

A Novel Geoengineering Idea: Increase the Ocean’s Quotient of Whale Poop


The fight against global warming has a brand new weapon: whale poop.

Scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division have found that whale poop contains huge amounts of iron and when it is released into the waters, the iron-rich feces become food for phytoplankton. Phytoplankton absorbs carbon dioxide from the air, the algae is in turn eaten by Antarctic krill, and baleen whales eat the krill. Through this neat cycle, globe-warming CO2 is kept sequestered in the ocean.

Scientists have long known that iron is necessary to sustain phytoplankton growth in the oceans, which is why one geoengineering scheme calls for adding soluble iron to ocean waters to encourage the growth of carbon-trapping algae blooms. While environmentalists have fretted over the possible consequences of meddling with ocean chemistry that way, this new study on whale poop suggests an all-natural way to get the same carbon-trapping effect: Increase the number of whales in the ocean.

When Stephen Nicol of the Australian Antarctic Division analyzed the feces of baleen whales, he found an astounding amount of iron in it. New Scientist reports:

Nicol’s team analyzed 27 samples of faeces from four species of baleen whales. He found that on average whale faeces had 10 million times as much iron as Antarctic seawater.

This led Nicol to suggest that before commercial whaling began, baleen whales may have been the source of almost 12 percent of all the iron in the Southern Ocean’s surface water. Nicol says that when the Baleen whales started to be hunted and killed over the last century, the Southern Ocean lost a rich source of iron.

“Allowing the great whales to recover will allow the system to slowly reset itself,” he says. And this will ultimately increase the amount of CO2 that the Southern Ocean can sequester.

David Raubenheimer, a marine biologist who wasn’t involved in the current study, told New Scientist that the findings are important.
They highlight a specific ecological role for whales in the oceans “other than their charisma”, he says.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Please see a related report about the food chain of whales.

http://buzz7.com/science/diatoms-key-to-evolution-of-whales.html

So if Diatoms are caused to bloom whale population would increase and then the iron would be recycled by the whales.

Diatoms, the secret sequesterer

Diatoms, the secret sequesterer

Posted In: R&D Daily | Climate | Global Climate Change | Oceanography | Biology | Chemistry | Argonne National Laboratory (DOE)

Friday, April 23, 2010

Even though you can’t see them with the naked eye, certain tiny sea algae make a big difference to the world’s climate. By taking in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, they convert it into solid plant matter and sequester it in the world's oceans.

But what makes these particular algae, called diatoms, of interest to scientists at Argonne and around the country is their ability to sequester a different organic compound: phosphorous. That's because phosphorous in the seas helps the algae grow faster, which allows them to remove more carbon from the atmosphere during their lifetimes.

A photomicrograph of an oceanic diatom, which can turn dissolved phosphorous into an inorganic mineral shell.

Though recent attention has focused more strongly on the relationship between atmospheric carbon and climate, researchers like Argonne X-ray physicist Ian McNulty also believe that the balance of dissolved phosphorous in the world’s oceans also plays a vital role in maintaining the planet’s fragile ecological equilibrium.

"If we can understand how phosphorus uptake and sequestrations takes place, we could uncover information that might give us clues as to how carbon uptake and sequestration take place in the ocean and affect the global carbon balance," said McNulty, who leads a collaborative effort to study how diatoms sequester various dissolved compounds. "This research is of huge interest to climatologists and bears directly on and the potential to combat global climate change."

McNulty and his colleagues have spent years studying diatoms, which absorb phosphorous from the surrounding water during photosynthesis. Unlike the carbon dioxide or several other elements that diatoms take in during their lifetimes, absorbed phosphorous does not re-enter the environment in its original state. Instead, the diatoms convert it into an inorganic mineral known as apatite. During the course of a diatom’s life, naturally occurring dissolved phosphorous is transformed into a mineral shell. When a diatom dies, this shell sinks to the ocean floor, sequestering the phosphorous from the ecosystem for millennia.

“Even though each individual diatom is exceptionally small, the scale at which they sequester phosphorous and carbon from the environment is vast,” McNulty said. “When you add it all up, the diatoms in the world’s ocean are taking up gigatons of phosphorous.”

“The phosphorous balance in the oceans is intimately connected with the carbon balance in the atmosphere – you can’t alter one without altering the other,” he added. “High phosphorous levels in the environment allow the algae to grow and reproduce, and as they expand they take in more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.”

Ellery Ingall and Julia Diaz, both of Georgia Tech, rinse particle samples aboard a research vessel. The diatoms collected in these samples were then taken to Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source for analysis.

Phosphorus is one of the principal ingredients of fertilizer, and makes up a large portion of agricultural runoff that winds up in large bodies of water, said oceanographer Jay Brandes of the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in Georgia, who collaborated with McNulty on the research. Researchers from Skidaway and the Georgia Institute of Technology helped to collect and analyze the diatom samples.

"Oceans are the repositories of everything that washes off the lands, and phosphorus is an important nutrient for all kinds of life, especially plant life," Brandes said. "Because these diatoms need it to survive, the levels of phosphorus will control the size of the algae population. As the diatoms use up the available phosphorus and turn it into polyphosphates, they will die off in large numbers, altering the phosphorus balance."

In order to study the molecular dynamics that underlie how diatoms capture and convert phosphorous, scientists need a high-energy synchrotron light source that can generate just the right type of light to illuminate phosphorous’s chemical structure. Fortunately, Argonne is home to the Advanced Photon Source (APS), which provides exactly the kind and intensity of X-rays that McNulty and his colleagues need. “In order to study the chemistry of phosphorous, you need a very specialized facility,” he said. “The APS is and will remain at least for a few years the brightest star on the horizon for this kind of research.”

Experiments performed on the APS use a physical phenomenon known as X-ray diffraction, in which the object under study – in this case, the phosphorous compounds contained with the diatom – scatter the oncoming X-ray beam. The pattern produced by the scattering allows scientists to determine the precise atomic configuration of the phosphorous in the sample. Argonne also is home to a world-class scanning X-ray microscope that provides another key that can unlock the chemical secrets of phosphorous compounds.

The APS allows researchers from around the world to observe and analyze structures that cannot be seen anywhere else, and an anticipated upgrade to the facility will give scientists an even more comprehensive view of diatoms at the molecular level. For instance, at the upgraded APS, Argonne researchers and users could study cryogenically preserved living algae to see the exact mechanism that allows them to form their apatite coatings.

After the more concentrated X-ray beams are built, physicists from Argonne and partner institutions could also examine the diatoms' ability to sequester other trace elements, such as iron and arsenic. Some of these elements are toxic, not only to the environment but also to people, and McNulty and his colleagues are eager to find new ways to prevent these chemicals from ending up in our bodies. “If you can image the concentrations of trace elements in cells, you can understand the root cause of many diseases or monitor the uptake of anti-cancer drugs. All of these advances depend on improving the sensitivity and resolution of the facility we have here,” McNulty said.

Diatoms, Primary Productivity, Fish

The Dynamics of a Diatom Bloom

J. H. Ryther, C. S. Yentsch, E. M. Hulburt and R. F. Vaccaro

Biological Bulletin, Vol. 115, No. 2 (Oct., 1958), pp. 257-268
Published by: Marine Biological Laboratory
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1539030


Photosynthesis and Fish Production in the Sea
http://www.icess.ucsb.edu/~davey/Geog158/Readings/RytherScience1969.pdf

The production of organic matter and its conversion to higher forms of life vary throughout the world ocean.

John H. Ryther
Science, VOL. 166, 3 October 1969

The result has been modification of the estimate of primary production in the
world ocean from 1.2 to 1.5 x 10 * 10 tons of carbon fixed per year (5) to a new
figure, 1.5 to 1.8 x 10 * 10 tons (18 billion tons).

Attempts have also been made by Steemann Nielsen and Jensen (5), Ryther (8), and Koblentz-Mishke et al. (7) to assign specific levels or ranges of productivity to different parts of the ocean. Although the approach was somewhat different in each case, in general the agreement between the three was good and, with appropriate condensation and combination, permit the following conclusions.

1) Annual primary production in the open sea varies, for the most part, between
25 and 75 grams of carbon fixed per square meter and averages about 50 grams of carbon per square meter per year. This is true for roughly 90 percent of the ocean, an area of 326 x 106 square kilometers.

Neuse River fish kill update

Neuse River fish kill grows worse

Fish Kill due to Diatom bloom

A rare case of a fish kill due to bloom of Diatoms.

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/sep/25/brown-water-dead-fish-wash-naples-beaches/

"Scientists have pegged the brown water affecting the Naples coast on a diatom, a silica-based algae, called Guinardia flaccida."

The cause of the Diatom bloom seems to be a spill of fluorosilicic acid -

"Workers at Stolthaven New Orleans LLC dumped almost half a million gallons of a chemical called fluorosilicic acid into the Mississippi River."

http://nutritionresearchcenter.org/healthnews/keep-your-genitalia-out-of-the-mississippi/

Nualgi results in a controlled bloom of Diatoms and hence is very useful and has no side effects.

Nualgi - Diatom Algae

Nualgi InGreen July 09

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