• Acid rain has turned Canadian lakes into a kind of jelly
    19 replies, posted
[thumb]http://i.imgur.com/9ygjLTd.jpg[/thumb][thumb]http://i.imgur.com/bLGWqwZ.jpg[/thumb][thumb]http://i.imgur.com/XkjeGHR.jpg[/thumb] Swimmers who dive into any number of Canadian lakes might not emerge clean and refreshed, but dripping with globs that resemble slimy fish eggs. A legacy of industrial pollution has caused great changes in the country's water chemistry, creating a boom in tiny organisms that transform lakes into "jelly." That's the gooey news from scientists behind a new paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, who say that populations of this particular organism have doubled since the 1980s in many of Ontario's lakes. The reasons involve a complex dance of species, but here's the short version: Acid rain caused by smelting operations and other human activity removed calcium from the soil in drainage areas. That depleted the calcium levels in many lakes, which has hurt a kind of plankton ([I]Daphnia[/I]) that needs the element to build armor. Enter a competing plankton, [I]Holopedium[/I], which requires far less calcium to bulk up and is coated with a gel that's excellent at repelling predators. [URL="http://www.citylab.com/weather/2014/11/acid-rain-has-turned-canadian-lakes-into-a-kind-of-jelly/382922/"][Click here to read more][/URL]
This is both fascinating and nasty-looking.
What's plankton doing in jelly man.
I dunno, that jelly looks a lot like those little chemical balls you can buy which then suck up a huge amount of water.
Looks like a type of fish egg.
I hope to god no one is swimming in lakes around this time of year...
Reminds of this; [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF6OxKGZdWU[/media]
Can I eat it?
Can I fry it?
[URL="http://www.pressprogress.ca/en/post/canada-has-worst-climate-change-record-industrialized-world"]Meanwhile...[/URL]
Will it blend?
I want to feel bad for the swimmers but at the same time I'm glad those little critters are doing so well
[QUOTE=person11;46528011]I want to feel bad for the swimmers but at the same time I'm glad those little critters are doing so well[/QUOTE] This isn't a good thing. When humans ruin the environment, it's never good. Many species suffer, while some others begin to flourish where they shouldn't and start to dominate other species in competition. Overall, this negatively affects biodiversity of ecosystems and makes certain species that live in them more vulnerable to extinction. [QUOTE]...That could become a problem as the numbers of Holopedium become ever more legion and start clogging up filtration systems. The marching masses of jelly might also damage populations of larger animals—including fish that people eat—as they diminish the amount of nutrients moving up the food chain.[/QUOTE] While I don't know too much about this particular species, I think it's safe to say it should serve as a warning sign.
[QUOTE='Poesidan [GAG];46528265']This isn't a good thing. When humans ruin the environment, it's never good. [/QUOTE] Not necessarily. Various environmental anomalies have been occuring for millions of years, causing drastic changes to the environment and thus huge turn-around to local and global ecosystems. In the big picture, one altered natural environment is insignificant, while the whole human activity and effect on Earth is merely one of many anomalies at best. On this scale it wouldn't to any damage to life on earth, so to say. Some species will die, others will flourish, and in the long run life on earth is not going anywhere. It's more of a short term thing, very visible to us, but fairly insignificant at the current scale.
This is pretty common in Lake Erie, iirc. You tend to also find this quiet a bit throughout the lakes and rivers of the southwest.
[QUOTE='Poesidan [GAG];46528265']This isn't a good thing. When humans ruin the environment, it's never good. Many species suffer, while some others begin to flourish where they shouldn't and start to dominate other species in competition. Overall, this negatively affects biodiversity of ecosystems and makes certain species that live in them more vulnerable to extinction. While I don't know too much about this particular species, I think it's safe to say it should serve as a warning sign.[/QUOTE] While it's definitely not good that we are shifting stuff around, it's still good to see that the ecosystem is adapting and keeps on ticking even as we upset stuff. By that I mean that it's better to find a different, even if slightly less appealing ecosystem, than finding barren wasteland.
If it had a mind you could reason with it...
[QUOTE=Pandamobile;46527801][URL="http://www.pressprogress.ca/en/post/canada-has-worst-climate-change-record-industrialized-world"]Meanwhile...[/URL][/QUOTE] Harper Government for 8 fucking years gg
I was actually expecting jelly Im disappointed...
[QUOTE=proch;46528419]Not necessarily. Various environmental anomalies have been occuring for millions of years, causing drastic changes to the environment and thus huge turn-around to local and global ecosystems. In the big picture, one altered natural environment is insignificant, while the whole human activity and effect on Earth is merely one of many anomalies at best. On this scale it wouldn't to any damage to life on earth, so to say. Some species will die, others will flourish, and in the long run life on earth is not going anywhere. It's more of a short term thing, very visible to us, but fairly insignificant at the current scale.[/QUOTE] Avatar definitely fits
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