Environment-Water and Air Quality

Controversial Pesticides Are Suspected Of Starving Fish

NPR 11/02/2019

The evidence is circumstantial. Right around the time the fish started having problems, early in the 1990s, farmers near the lake started using these pesticides on their rice paddies to control insect pests. Yamamuro also found traces of these chemicals in some parts of the lake. Those levels, she thinks, are high enough to cause problems for tiny aquatic animals. Also, neonicotinoids kill insects, but not the algae that the thriving fish were eating.

Neonicotinoids disrupt aquatic food webs and decrease fishery yields

AAAS Science 11/01/2019

Cascading effects of pesticide use It is now well known that neonicotinoids negatively affect pollinators. As research has expanded, it has become clear that these globally used insecticides directly affect other ecosystem components, including vertebrates. Yamamuro et al. now show that these compounds are indirectly affecting species through trophic cascades (see the Perspective by Jensen). Since the application of neonicotinoids to agricultural fields began in the 1990s, zooplankton biomass has plummeted in a Japanese lake surrounded by these fields. This decline has led to shifts in food web structure and a collapse of two commercially harvested freshwater fish species. The authors argue that such dynamics are likely occurring widely.

It's raining plastic: microscopic fibers fall from the sky in Rocky Mountains

The Guardian 8/13/2019

Rainwater samples collected across Colorado and analyzed under a microscope contained a rainbow of plastic fibers, as well as beads and shards. The findings shocked Weatherbee, who had been collecting the samples in order to study nitrogen pollution.

Unsorted Links

Mysterious oil spill threatens marine biodiversity haven in Brazil

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/mysterious-oil-spill-threatens-marine-biodiversity-haven-brazil