Water is life. Knowledge is power.
This [fuel facility] is not the eighth wonder of the world. It is Frankenstein’s monster. And we have to kill it before it kills us.”
This is the plea from Marti Townsend, one of more than … [more…]
Florida wildlife officials will undertake a manatee feeding and rescue operation involving hand-feeding the mammals romaine lettuce, amid unprecedented mortality among the gentle aquatic creatures affectionately known as “sea cows”.
Typically, manatees return to warm water winter feeding grounds, where they feast on plentiful seagrass.
But algal blooms from polluted waters have devastated seagrass beds, … [more…]
Photo courtesy of My Kailua
Opinion
Fresh, potable water is an everyday miracle in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. To have enough to supply millions with (relatively) few constraints on usage? It’s almost unimaginable. And, perhaps, too precarious to want to imagine.
Of course, the water in Hawai’i serves more than latecomer humans. Endemic land species of every kind, exotic imports, and unique hybrids do not spring from saltwater. … [more…]
Insect defoliators alter biogeochemical cycles from land into receiving waters by consuming terrestrial biomass and releasing biolabile frass. Here, we related insect outbreaks to water chemistry across 12 boreal lake catchments over 32-years. We report, on average, 27% lower dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and 112% higher dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) concentrations in lake waters when defoliators covered entire catchments and reduced leaf area. DOC reductions reached 32% when deciduous … [more…]
Photo: One of the few species that was found to be resistant to severe glyphosate contamination was Scapholeberis mucronata, a freshwater zooplankter commonly found in Québec and elsewhere in North America. Credit: Marie-Pier Hébert
A series of recent research papers from a McGill-led team has found that the herbicide glyphosate—commonly sold under the label Roundup—can alter the structure of natural freshwater bacterial and zooplankton communities. Notably, the researchers found that … [more…]