Algal bloom

freshwater lakes and ponds respond to the changes in their climate in two ways. They either can not respond, therefore, the number of that organism decreases and can become extinct, or they adapt so well that they overpowers other organisms causing the other organisms to become extinct. In the Arctic, ice caps have started to melt causing many animals to be stranded. All of these environmental changes are also affecting us humans. Freshwater lakes and ponds have drastically been affected due to the climate change we have noticed over the past few years. One organism that are being affected are algal blooms, which are an increase in the amount of algae in one water system. Algae blooms are taking over because they can adapt to the environmental changes better than other organisms. Adjustments caused by the climate changes or nutrient being enrichment make it possible for the algal blooms to grow more rapidly than before (http://ecologyandevolution.cornell.edu). Another way freshwater organisms are affected by the changes in their environments is through evolving more quickly than before. To evolve, favored characteristics are genetically passed from generation to generation. Evolving happens faster because the generation times are becoming slower causing evolutionary times to become faster. Take Giraffes for example, over time they evolved to have longer necks to make it easier for them to reach the leaves from the tree tops (http://ecologyandevolution.cornell.edu). Another…

contributes to the overgrowth of phytoplankton. • Agricultural waste inadequately treated or untreated sewage and other urban pollution flows into the Gulf of Mexico along with runoff from hog and poultry farms containing nitrogen allow the takeover of surface water by phytoplankton or other plants. Hypoxia is observed as high concentrations of toxic phytoplankton and the levels of nitrogen and phosphorus continue to rise. The presence of nitrogen and phosphorus, a disrupted food chain, all work…

lakes. When people think about the Great Lake Basin and talk about how polluted they are, many people think about the toxic chemicals illustrated above. Many people talk about mercury levels in salmon coming out of Lake Ontario, and how swimming in a few of the Great Lakes in some areas is frond upon due to high levels of toxins. Although these are all valid reasons to think the Great Lakes are polluted, there are other issues that are occurring that many people are not aware of. Two issues…

What are some common symptoms of food poisoning? Based on those symptoms, which dinoflagellate do you think is responsible for the outbreak? A bloom of dinoflagellates can change the water color colloquially known as red tide. Red tide can infect shellfish and cause shellfish poisoning if people eat the bad shellfish. Some symptoms of shellfish poisoning are nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea Explain how an HAB outbreak can have a devastating economic impact. There would be a bad impact on…

populations, algal blooms pose a growing threat to water safety. We are observing increasing instances of algal blooms, which pose a significant threat to human and native ecosystem health, reduce aesthetic quality of source water by causing taste and odor issues, and may harm the filtration systems employed in water treatment, thus driving up the costs of water treatment. Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are often accompanied by growth of microorganisms known as cyanobacteria, a photosynthetic…

Is the Growth of Microcystis and Lake Water Protists Affected by Phosphorus Concentration? _______________________________________ Purpose The purpose of this experiment is to determine if algae will grow more if fertilizer is added to the water where the algae is growing. Background/ Introduction An algal bloom is an increase and accumulation of algae in freshwater or salt water systems. Most algae blooms are caused by blue-green algae. Blue-green algae is actually not algae at all, it is…

is not used in such a way and this leads to high levels of ground phosphorous build up in areas where pigs are farmed. Initially, this is not a problem, but after heavy rainfall or the springtime snow thaw, the high levels of phosphorous can find its way into various sources of water and once there, often leads to toxic algal blooms. These algal blooms are quickly fueled by the massive concentration of phosphorous as it is a required nutrient for their growth and as they grow to colossal sizes…

Committee: Representative of Agriculture Topic: Lake Erie’s Toxic Algal Bloom Name: Violet Landrum “Nobody adores fertilizer. Nobody devotes their life to fertilizer (unless they own a fertilizer company). But, you need it to grow the crops. The land is arid and dry without it, and trying to grow things is likely to be futile.” - Shellen Lubin. According to a paper written in Science, the ocean has lost roughly 77 billion tons of oxygen in the last 50 years, being up to nearly 2% of its waters…

– 2-4 paragraphs Ramifications of argument, links between this and other text – 2-4 paragraphs Critique – 2-4 paragraphs Holistic vs. Reductionist (1 page) A reductionistic approach to Environmental Science, exemplified by Davidson et al. (2014), is the breakdown of the factors required for algal growth, such as nutrient ratios and sources, hydrodynamics, and mixtrophy just to name a few. However, the holistic approach exemplified by Davidson et al. (2014), is the admission that analysing the…

of Mexico. The area in the Gulf of Mexico that is noted for oxygen depletion is called the “dead zone”. A dead zone, also known as a hypoxia zone, is an area with little to no dissolved oxygen in the water. It is believed that these areas are depleted of oxygen because of the pollution in the runoff delivered by the mighty Mississippi River. A fair amount of this pollution comes from fertilizer runoff from Midwestern farms that leach into the Mississippi River. This fertilizer contains large…