{"id":3515,"date":"2014-11-18T19:02:06","date_gmt":"2014-11-19T00:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=3515"},"modified":"2014-11-19T09:02:37","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T14:02:37","slug":"the-jellification-of-canadas-freshwater-lakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/the-jellification-of-canadas-freshwater-lakes\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018jellification\u2019 of Canada\u2019s freshwater lakes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A loss of calcium in freshwater lakes due to acid rain leads to a reduction in hard-shelled crustaceans and an increase in jelly-covered creatures like this Holopedium animal (Photo credit: Ian Gardiner \/ E-Fauna BC. Used with special permission of the photographer.)<\/p><\/div>\n

A strange jelly-covered organism is taking over various lakes in Canada, and the cause is a kind of \u2018aquatic osteoporosis\u2019 due to low calcium levels, according to a new study.\u00a0Researchers studied two kinds of tiny crustaceans about 1 mm or less in size: Daphnia<\/em> – AKA water fleas – have a hard shell, while Holopedium<\/em> surround themselves in a ball of a jelly-like substance.<\/p>\n

Data from 8 well-studied lakes in Ontario show that when calcium levels are reduced (a legacy of acid rain) the hard-shelled Daphnia<\/em> can\u2019t grow their shells and go into decline. The leftover food they would have eaten leads to an increase in jelly-covered Holopedium<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Large blooms of Holopedium<\/em> can be a nuisance by clogging water filters. Additionally they also disrupt the food web because they are\u00a0harder for predators to catch and less nutritious than Daphnia<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Evidence from 36 Ontario lakes and 48 lakes in Nova Scotia show that this effect is widespread and correlated with acid rain deposition going back several decades.<\/p>\n

Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B<\/i>\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0November 18, 2014<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Adam Jeziorski, Queen\u2019s University, Ontario<\/h4>\n

John Smol, Queen\u2019s University, Ontario<\/h4>\n

Andrew Tanentzap, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A strange jelly-covered organism is taking over various lakes in Canada, and the cause is a kind of \u2018aquatic osteoporosis\u2019 due to low calcium levels, according to a new study.\u00a0Researchers studied two kinds of tiny crustaceans about 1 mm or less in size: Daphnia – AKA water fleas – have a hard shell, while Holopedium […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3516,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[170,113,31,1445,171,2292,50],"class_list":["post-3515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-biodiversity","tag-biology","tag-climate-change","tag-conservation","tag-ecology","tag-lakes","tag-ontario"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/21982-Ian-Gardiner_Entry_21982_Holopedium-gibberum.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-UH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3515"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3537,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions\/3537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}