The Great Lakes a Dead Zone
Its Really Blooming, By Ben Hart and Mac Catrambone
Explanation of what causes a Dead zone.
Basically the rivers that connect to the lake are contaminated with fertilizer from farms, and it enters the lake. It is more intense during spring because of how much it rains. The reason rain speeds up the process is because it floods the land near the river and lakes washing it into the river or lake. Mainly it is agricultural runoff and human activity. So this is a result of too much phosphorous and nitrogen contaminating the lake. This whole process is called Eutrophication.
(Figure 1 to the right is Lake Erie a dead zone) (Live Science)
What types of organisms are involved?
What are the ecological impacts, which species are affected and how is the environment affected?
Algal blooms and hypoxia are two ecological impacts in the marine ecosystem. This is what makes these zones, dead zones. Us humans can be affected by fish who use filter feed in the water like shellfish. They filter feed microbes and most of them are toxic to humans. Anything that depends on fish for food like wading birds will die. Due to the fact all the fish turn into toxic contaminated organisms.
Fish that are affected
yellow perch
rainbow smelt
emerald shiner
round goby
pelagic prey
- benthic prey
Economic impacts of dead zones
Location affected by these
What can be done to reduce or eliminate this issue?
We can reduce run off. A lot of nutrients come from animal feedlots that put a lot of excess nutrients into bodies of water. Rain water is a big part because it transport all these pollutants into the ocean so if we can use certain materials that soak up the water and keep the polluted water in the area where it started and not into the ocean and lakes. We can also use materials that will help absorb the rainwater so it doesn't transport to areas that could be affected.
Works cited
"Dead Zone." National Geographic. National geographic society, 3 Feb. 2016. Web.
3 Feb. 2016. <http://education.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/
dead-zone/>.
"How Is the Fish Habbitat Affected." Technical Bulletin. Zoe Almeida, July 2015.
Web. 3 Feb. 2016. <http://wildlife.ohiodnr.gov/portals/wildlife/pdfs/
public%20areas/OWC_TechBull3.pdf>.
"Lake Erie Dead Zone: Don't Blame the Slime!" Live Science. Becky Oskin, 6 Jan.
2015. Web. 3 Feb. 2016. <http://www.livescience.com/
49347-lake-erie-dead-zone-drought.html>.Macs Works Cited
“Dead zone.” National Geographic. N.p., 7 May 2012. Web. 9 Feb. 2016. <http://education.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/dead-zone/>.
“Dead zones.” Teachoceanscience. N.p., 18 July 2011. Web. 9 Feb. 2016. <http://www.teachoceanscience.net/teaching_resources/education_modules/dead_zones/investigate_current_research/>.