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Blooms Unit (3 Pts) Section T. James Noyes, El Camino College Blooms Unit (Topic 10A-2) – page 1 Name: Blooms Unit (3 pts) Section: Blooms A bloom is the rapid increase in the population of an organism (a “population explosion”). Blooms occur when something needed for growth and reproduction, something that was holding back or “limiting” the size of the population, becomes more abundant. Phytoplankton blooms typically occur when the amount of sunlight or nutrients increases. (Sunlight and nutrients are the two things that phytoplankton need for photosynthesis that there may not be enough of in ocean water.) A bloom will stop and the population will shrink when the resource runs out or goes away. Zooplankton bloom when phytoplankton bloom, because more phytoplankton means more food for them. However, most animals cannot reproduce as fast as phytoplankton, so their population grows more slowly and is not large enough to prevent the growth of the phytoplankton population (until the phytoplankton bloom begins to slow down on its own). Humans can cause blooms of phytoplankton by adding lots of additional nutrients to ocean water. (We cannot affect the amount of sunlight, can we?) Typically, humans add nutrients by dumping untreated sewage or when rain washes fertilizers and animal wastes off farmland and into rivers. (Animal wastes are the feces or manure from cows, pigs, and so on.) In developed countries like the United States, sewage is treated to a very high standard and accidental spills of untreated or partially treated sewage are rare, so in the United States farming is the primary human activity that causes or contributes to blooms of algae (phytoplankton) in lakes and the ocean. 1. What is a bloom? 2. How do humans cause blooms of phytoplankton? In other words, what do humans add to ocean water that cause phytoplankton to bloom? 3. Why do the things that humans add to ocean water cause phytoplankton to bloom? In other words, how or why do they benefit phytoplankton? T. James Noyes, El Camino College Blooms Unit (Topic 10A-2) – page 2 Storm Drains and Sewage Storm drains carry anything on the surface of the land into rivers, lakes, and the ocean when it rains. Yard waste and animal feces in storm drain runoff are sources of nutrients. However, it takes a while for them to be decomposed by bacteria in the ocean. The nutrients are released slowly, a little bit at a time. Thus, storm drain runoff from a city typically does NOT have enough nutrients in it to cause a harmful bloom of phytoplankton. It is the bacteria that grow on the fecal matter that typically cause the worst problems: the bacteria can make beachgoers sick. The ocean helps the bacteria get into our bodies through our eyes, ears, mouth, and so on. The water offers support to the bacteria so that they can drift to us. Government authorities will shut down a beach (close the beach) when too many bacteria are found in the water. (When a beach is closed, signs are put up telling people that they should not get in the water, that getting in the water is prohibited.) Note that it is bacteria from land animals that typically make human swimmers sick. Most ocean bacteria are NOT well adapted to invade the bodies of land mammals like humans. Sewage comes from all the stuff that goes down the drains in your house: the kitchen sink, toilets, bathroom sinks, the bathtub, the dishwasher, the washing machine, and so on. (Sewage is also called wastewater.) Sewage is a soup of dead, decaying material, wastes, and chemicals that flows out of our homes and other buildings. Before sewage is released into the ocean or other bodies of water, the government mandates that it must be treated. (It must be cleaned.) This treatment typically focuses on killing disease-causing bacteria and removing excess nutrients. Nowadays, sewage is treated to a very high standard in developed countries like the United States. The treated wastewater is practically drinkable. Thus, both rainwater runoff from storm drains and water coming out of sewage treatment plants are NOT typically the causes of harmful blooms of phytoplankton in the United States, certainly not the biggest and longest lasting ones. In the United States and other developed countries like T. James Noyes, El Camino College Blooms Unit (Topic 10A-2) – page 3 Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, and so on, it is the fertilizers put on the fields of farms that cause the worst harmful blooms of phytoplankton. (Note: Farmers put lots of fertilizers on their fields to grow the food we eat. Using lots of fertilizers helps them grow more food per square foot of field, which makes food cheaper for us to buy.) There are so many humans doing so much farming (and other activities, like releasing untreated sewage in some parts of the world) that we are now responsible for a significant fraction of the nutrients that enter the ocean. This is a somewhat recent development. Plenty of nutrients were entering the ocean naturally before we existed. Earlier we learned that rain water washes nutrients naturally found in soil on land into rivers, lakes, and the ocean, and this is still true. (I think it would be fair to say that a lot of the nutrients entering the ocean each year are due to human activities, but you should NOT simply say that nutrients enter the ocean due to human activities. Natural sources remain important.) I think it is fair to say that humans ARE responsible for unnaturally large amounts of nutrients entering the ocean in some places and at some times. It is unnaturally large amounts of nutrients that are likely to result in harmful blooms. 4. True or false? “Storm drain runoff is a common cause of harmful blooms of algae.” 5. How is sewage treated before it is released into the ocean? In other words, what is removed from the wastewater? Harmful Blooms of Phytoplankton You might expect that causing blooms is a good thing: more nutrients means more phytoplankton and thus ultimately more animals for us to eat. However, unnaturally large numbers of phytoplankton can cause big problems. We will examine two major examples: dead zones (regions of water with low levels of oxygen) and toxic algal blooms (phytoplankton who make poisonous substances). Our example of a toxic algal bloom is red tides. T. James Noyes, El Camino College Blooms Unit (Topic 10A-2) – page 4 Red Tides: An example of a harmful bloom Red tides are a bloom of red-colored phytoplankton (typically dinoflagellates); there are so many phytoplankton in the water that they make the water look red (or brown or yellowish). Some red tide algae – but not all! – produce chemicals like domoic acid that are toxic to vertebrates like birds, mammals, and humans. Filter feeders like clams and other shellfish strain the algae out of the water during a bloom. They eat lots of algae, and the more they eat, the more toxic they become. (This is called bioaccumulation.) If we or other vertebrates (like seals and sea gulls) eat the shellfish, we can become sick. Illnesses caused by toxins being passed up the food chain in this way include ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP), diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP), and paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP). In general, it is safe to swim in red tides; you won’t swallow nearly enough water to become poisoned. However, the algae do leak toxins into the water, and these cause some people to develop rashes. As long as you get out of the water when you notice the rash and wash it off, you should be fine. ) Breaking waves can catapult the toxins into the air, and some of these toxins cause respiratory (breathing) problems for people who live near the coast. (This discussion is NOT true for all blooms of algae, especially those in lakes. It can be extremely dangerous to drink or even touch water in a lake filled with toxic algae.) Note that the phytoplankton are NOT poisonous because of toxic chemicals absorbed from the water. Like many land plants, the red tide phytoplankton naturally produce chemicals that are harmful to humans. The most dangerous animals to eat after a bloom of red tide phytoplankton are filter-feeders like clams, mussels, oysters and so on. When people see a bunch of dead fish floating in the water, they are usually smart enough to guess that something might be wrong with the fish. (They do not say to themselves “Yum, a free lunch.”) However, the toxins in red tide phytoplankton do not kill clams, mussels, oysters, and other invertebrates. Toxins build up more and more in the bodies of shellfish like clams, mussels, and oysters as they eat phytoplankton. The more phytoplankton they eat, the more toxins are entering their bodies. It should be safe to eat clams, mussels, oysters, and other shellfish in restaurants, because the United States has good regulations and does a good job of inspecting seafood. Restaurants will import shellfish if the local ones may be poisonous. T. James Noyes, El Camino College Blooms Unit (Topic 10A-2) – page 5 6. What are red tides? In other words, why does the water become “red”? 7. How can red tides harm (but do not kill) humans? 8. How can red tides kill humans? 9. In general, is it safe to swim in a red tide? Why or why not? 10. In general, is it safe to eat in local restaurants when there is a toxic algae bloom in the nearby ocean? Why or why not? T. James Noyes, El Camino College Blooms Unit (Topic 10A-2) – page 6 “Dead Zones:” An example of a harmful bloom Another example of a harmful algal bloom is a dead zone.
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