Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

I haven't been actively installing feeders this winter with bird flu outbreaks in our rural area, but decided to put out a seed cylinder for the holiday. This resulted in a common, but new bird for me: a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker. #birding

The CCGS Amundsen is a Canadian research icebreaker run by the non-profit Amundsen Science at Université Laval and operated by Canadian Coast Guard. This past summer, the ship was able to navigate into areas previously off limits due to very thick multi-year ice (5+ yrs, 7 or more metres thick).

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

I am glad this old shipwreck hasn't been entangled in equipment over the years. This zone of Lake Ontario regularly has active surveys using a variety of equipment, including bottom net trawls. Must luckily be in-between standardized stations.

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

This is not good. The energy that is required to heat the volume of one of the world's largest lakes by an extra 3°C is enormous. Excellent comments by colleagues Jay Austin and Maggie Xenopoulos on the anomalous heating of Lake Superior.

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐 This is the phyllosoma larva of a Spiny "Rock" Lobster, which can spend as much as a year drifting in the plankton. #MarineBiology #science

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

So anyone at the beach around eastern Toronto GTA will be noticing significantly colder water due to an UPWELLING resulting from recent prolonged winds from the NW. This process is explained in a recent video for Lake Michigan from 13 News western Michigan.

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland has a serious cyanobacteria bloom problem and doesn't look like it will improve anytime soon. The system is hypereutrophic, with more than half of the phosphorus load coming from agriculture, but also a large contribution from aging wastewater treatment plants.

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐

This weekend is the last chance to say goodbye to our local West Montrose Covered Bridge ("Kissing Bridge"). The historic 145 year old span of the Grand River is the last remaining original one in #Ontario . It will be replaced over the next 2 years by a rebuilt covered bridge, with hopefully many

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐 Did you know that plankton can get sunburn? UV radiation can affect microbes, #phytoplankton and #zooplankton by causing cellular molecular or genetic damage. While some species can avoid the surface zone, others can not, so therefore create protective compounds like

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐 Plankton have #parasites , just like any other organism, but in some cases, this leads to improved feeding conditions. #Daphnia zooplankton must often feed on freshwater cyanobacteria, which isn't an ideal food for them. However, when the #cyanobacteria has a

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐 27 M tonnes. Dutch NIOZ scientists found that nanoplastics (<1 μm) are not only widespread, but equivalent to the mass of macro & microplastics! Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) #plastics don't just float on the surface,

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐 A new paper using expert interviews lays out ecosystem services provided by plankton. These range from economic provisioning of feed or oils, regulating nutrients and the #climate through the carbon pump, cultural and tourism, and oxygenation of the atmosphere. They

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐 For a while, there has been concern for how the ocean's #ecosystem is being modeled. Too often it is oversimplified with #phytoplankon and #zooplankton added almost as an afterthought, much less higher trophic levels, or so detailed as to miss relationships and

This is why massive cuts to NOAA and the National Weather Service are so dangerous. You can expect more of this with the increasingly anti-science policies given climate driven intense storms and increased unpredictability. #science #weather

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐 While less discussed, there is a similar circulation to the AMOC in the #Antarctic called the Southern Meridional Overturning Circulation (SMOC). This is also vital to deep circulation, algal productivity, ecosystem function, and the global #carbon cycle. While there

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐 More news about the potential collapse of an ocean current, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) which transfers heat from the tropics to northern Atlantic, giving Europe a much milder climate, controls plankton productivity, and importantly also

We were in Mt Forest, #Ontario for a performance last night when #tornado warning alarms went off on all the phones. Tremendous amount of lightning, but haven't seen any official reports of damage yet. This is what the sky looked like at 9 pm 😬. #onstorm

Terrible backlit photos of bird this morning feeding at insects at corner of the windows. Quite active and hard to see well, but still very sure it is a female american redstart from the very distinct yellow bands on the tail with a very dark tip. #birds #birdsofmastodon

Our partners at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory have found cyanobacteria microcystin toxins in the western basin of Lake Erie April 28, far earlier this year than ever before. The season starts earlier and lasts longer due to #ClimateChange

Randall Monroe's recent "xkcd What if" video has a Great Lakes connection. "What if you funneled Niagara Falls through a straw?" Super cool system where we did fieldwork some year ago. Kudos for mentioning trouble with the Niagara Board of Control. 🏅 https://youtu.be/pfbzrrcQZjs?feature=shared

With a record heatwave starting tomorrow, #ShowYourStripes day is timely.🥵 The #GreatLakes have helped to moderate warming, but even in southern Ontario we see a clear pattern of significantly increased warming during the last 25

New paper on plastic waste in Toronto Harbour. "Wind driven transport of macroplastic debris in a large urban harbour measured by GPS-tracked drifters Open Access link = www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... The video below shows the pathways that floating plastics were driven by the wind.

Randall Munroe (of xkcd fame) posted about an analysis done by David R. Hagen related to his "missing 11th" comic. Great read, which includes some nice statistical analysis, but more interestingly, bias and

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐 Mating by copepods is a complicated process since they are always at risk of predation by other plankton or fishes. Male #copepods carefully mechanically and chemically track a receptive female, capture them, and deposit an adhesive spermatophore near the genital

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐 The new Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite is crazy accurate. It can measure ocean altimetry to a mm, imaging internal waves and small sub eddies (rotating mixing zones). Tiny changes in height happen when water swirls (try it in a sink) with greater