How Rocky Mountain lakes fight back against pollution

liza — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:59:46 +0000

Leora Nanus of the USGS Water Resources Division joins us in the June edition of Field Talk. Nanus studied the ability of alpine lakes in the national parks of the Rocky Mountains to buffer against harmful acidic pollution from the air. She and her colleagues found that some surprising lake characteristics, like surrounding slope steepness, lake elevation and bedrock minerals, can be used to predict the resilience of a lake to pollution. Nanus used her data to create a model for national park managers that can help determine which lakes are at highest risk of the negative impacts of pollution.

Dead Zones as Safe Havens

liza — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:39:18 +0000

Andrew Altieri, a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University, joins us in this month’s episode of Field Talk to discuss his work examining hypoxic marine systems, known as dead zones. Altieri studies a community of clams and mussels – collectively known as bivalves – in Narragansett Bay, off the coast of Providence, Rhode Island. His paper in the October issue of Ecology shows that one species of bivalve, the quahog, can benefit from reduced oxygen content in the water. The resulting boom in quahog populations has important implications for ecosystem services.

eutrophication – Field Talk

How Rocky Mountain lakes fight back against pollution

Dead Zones as Safe Havens