Inland Water Biology

Found this journal, Inland Water Biology. There are wonderfull photo's of diatoms by S.I. Genkal. And many articles about zooplankton too, this fascinating group that many times is forgotten. What makes it extra interesting on these lati- and longitudes is the fact that many articles deal with Karelian waters.



Take a look!

Speciesism

I often feel quite uncomfortable, when I see some strange green balls under the microscope. If these green algae are the kind that I don't know so well. And if I have difficulties identifying them. So that I don't know in which group they belong to. So that I don't now their background. So that I don't know how I should handle them. It does not feel good.

In these cases there is nothing else for me to do, than to leave them for what they are and call them with a group name, like Chlorophyceae, that covers all the possible green balls. And keep on hoping, that One Day I will find the information to be able to identify them as species and understand their taxonomically right place and their background. That would make me happy. But in the meanwhile I have to be able to stand out the stress of not knowing, not understanding.

In these times, that we are having elections here in Finland and even here the message of extreme right is more and more heard, the thought came into my mind, that people who suffer from a breeze of racism, probably go through same kind of feelings as I do with my little green balls. They must feel uncomfortable and unsecure. Not knowing or understanding.

I do hope that they will stand out the stress.

After all, we all belong to the same Family.

Smells like sh*t

Got this telephone call from a consulting company. There had been complaints that something smelled like cow dung at a lake, so they took a sample from the ice on this lake. The farmers are not yet busy... They could see something in the sample.

I had some difficulties trying to identify the species on the telephone... In the last sample of the year there had been a lot of the diatom Aulacoseira islandica. Perhaps it was that. I asked if they could send me a some of that sample. They could.

This is what I saw:
Aulacoseira indeed. And after a closer look I could be positive, that it is islandica.


Our beloved Astrid Cleve-Euler wrote in 1951 that this species is common and an important algae in the larger, meso- to eutrophic waters. And that it can form blooms in the winter!

Bijkerk et al 1996 write, that A. islandica has it's temperature optimum below 10 degrees and that it needs less light than it's sister A. granulata, for example. If the water is more eutroficated, then A. granulata will probably win.

The smell then. My nose did not detect any odour of dung. Some faint smell of... of... don't know.
Aulacoseira?

Literature:
Bijkerk, Ronald, Joosten, Ton & Koeman Reinoud 1996. Documentatie van centrale diatomeeën uit Nederlandse eutrofe binnenwateren. Koeman en Bijkerk bv, Haren. The Netherlands.
Cleve-Euler, Astrid 1951. Die Diatomeen von Schweden und Finnland. Kungl. Svenska vetenskapsakademiens handlingar. 4. ser. bd. 2, no. 1; 1-163.