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I posted on Instagram recently about the role of algae and I promised to explain further on my next garden bite. Let me set this up first. My neighbor, Corliss and I go walking nearly every day that is above 45 degrees. I’m very fortunate to live about a quarter mile from the entry to 2 lovely trails along each side of a river. Corliss doesn’t like the “ugly” algae that is growing right now.
Granted it doesn’t necessarily look pretty but it plays multiple useful roles in nature.
Algae provide significant benefits to the aquatic ecosystems by oxygenating water through photosynthesis which forms the base of the food chain for aquatic life!
Algae aid in the purification of the water by absorbing nutrients and heavy metals. They’re also a vital habitat, improving water quality in natural balances and for that reason are also used in wastewater treatment plants. Sometimes things that don’t necessarily look pretty in our eyes are beautiful for what they provide to our Earth!
The other notable algae was orange and had some rainbow colors along with an oily type surface. It does look frightening when you don’t know what’s taking place.
Digging a little further, I discovered information from a Watershed District in Colorado. The following comes from the Watershed: With visual effects such as these, it would be understandable to assume that some sort of nasty pollutant has contaminated the creek. Fortunately, however, it’s a common natural phenomenon that occurs in perfectly healthy creeks.
The Watershed explains that there is an interesting micro-bio-geo-chemical story behind the rainbow colors and textures. The rusty substance is just that: rust, or iron oxide . It is an easily observable part of an interesting, mostly hidden cycle of iron reduction and re-oxidation mediated by two different types of iron bacteria. The gelatinous mass is a large colony of iron-oxidizing bacteria. The thing that separates iron-oxidizing bacteria from other types of bacteria is, put simply, just the way they get their energy. Nature is just so cool!
I’ll wrap this one up with a snapshot of the Cannon… I wish my phone camera took better shots. I’ll probably have to break down, ditch the Android and learn to work with an iPhone!
