Dr. Smol's time machine

A Queen카지노 게임 컬렉션�s 카지노게임사이트 biologist is using 카지노 게임 컬렉션�ecological time machines카지노 게임 컬렉션� to decipher ancient environmental records left by the natural world in places where no human records exist. To fully understand today카지노 게임 컬렉션�s environment, says John Smol, it카지노 게임 컬렉션�s necessary to learn what that world looked like before we changed it.

카지노 게임 컬렉션�Many of the answers [in environmental science] lie in the past. You go to a doctor when you카지노 게임 컬렉션�re sick, and the first thing the doctor does is try to get your medical history,카지노 게임 컬렉션� he says.

Dr. Smol has shown that the medical history of an ecosystem exists in sediments at the bottoms of lakes, rivers, and ponds.

 They preserve a large spectrum of indicators, such as fossilized, single-celled diatoms, which are algae with tough, glass-like outer shells that stay intact in sediment for thousands of years. There are thousands of species of diatoms, identifiable by their distinct shapes, much like seashells.

The key is that different types of diatoms thrive in different conditions 카지노 게임 컬렉션� more or less acid in the water, for example, or different temperatures, levels of salt, and so on. Learn which diatoms lived long ago, and you can begin to understand what past conditions were like.

This ability to look back in time has put Dr. Smol into headlines around the world for tracing climate change, wildlife, pollutants, and now, with Queen카지노 게임 컬렉션�s PhD student Matthew Duda, the curious declines of huge numbers of Canada카지노 게임 컬렉션�s Atlantic seabirds.

In an age where biology is heavily focused on the molecules inside a single cell, Dr. Smol and his team still study whole ecosystems. For example, he has traced the spread of a species of smelly, brown algae in Canadian Shield lakes and the possible links to climate warming, and his team found clues as to why cottage owners don카지노 게임 컬렉션�t see crayfish anymore; acid rain damaged their lakes years ago, and though acid rain has declined, it had stripped away calcium from the lakes that crayfish need to make their shells. 

Diatoms are at the heart of much of Dr. Smol카지노 게임 컬렉션�s work.

Collecting them is done by taking vertical core samples of lake sediment. Dr. Smol and Mr. Duda use an instrument called a corer to retrieve a record of mud and many indicators, including diatoms, which are preserved in layers that can be dated.  

One of their current projects is investigating the suspected decline of large numbers of one of Canada카지노 게임 컬렉션�s most common seabirds, the Leach카지노 게임 컬렉션�s storm-petrel. The bird is tough to study: it lives on the open ocean and comes to land only at nesting time. It is also nocturnal.

Storm-petrels 카지노 게임 컬렉션�are very abundant but they seem to be in decline everywhere,카지노 게임 컬렉션� Dr. Smol says. 카지노 게임 컬렉션�But are they in decline? We have so little data. We need to reconstruct past seabird trends. The key lies in sediment cores." 
Dr. Smol and Mr. Duda could see the effects of the bird카지노 게임 컬렉션�s droppings in freshwater pond sediment on the uninhabited Baccalieu Island north of St. John카지노 게임 컬렉션�s, Nfld., where storm-petrels nest by the millions. Droppings in turn influence the growth of diatoms, forming a pattern for anyone able to read it.

That카지노 게임 컬렉션�s Dr. Smol카지노 게임 컬렉션�s job.

카지노 게임 컬렉션�It카지노 게임 컬렉션�s like a time machine,카지노 게임 컬렉션� he says.

The storm-petrel produces very acidic guano. It both fertilizes the pond water and makes it acidic. So, for periods in the past, 카지노 게임 컬렉션�when we find acid-type diatoms in large numbers and also diatoms indicating high nutrients [i.e., fertilizer], then bird populations were higher.카지노 게임 컬렉션�

Four years of work show the bird카지노 게임 컬렉션�s numbers are dropping severely, and the reason is closer to a solution. Dr. Smol developed some of his techniques decades ago, when acid rain posed a frustrating puzzle in the 1980s. Lakes were acidic and fish were dying, but nobody knew what the natural state of the lakes was. 카지노 게임 컬렉션�I cut my teeth on acid rain,카지노 게임 컬렉션� he says. 카지노 게임 컬렉션�You could go to Adirondack Park, where we did a lot of work, or to Algonquin Park, and the lakes were acid in the 1980s. But how do you know they weren카지노 게임 컬렉션�t always acid?카지노 게임 컬렉션� In the Adirondacks, they found the 1980s diatoms were species that live in very acidic water, but often before about 1930 there were types adapted to much less acidic water. And that helped settle the debate over whether the lakes were naturally acidic.

Dr. Smol arrived at Queen카지노 게임 컬렉션�s as a young PhD student in the fall of 1979 and now holds the post of Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change and is President of the Academy of Science, Royal Society of Canada. 
He has a long list of major awards and has done many projects with his brother, Jules Blais of the 카지노게임사이트 of Ottawa. The brothers were jointly the Royal Canadian Geographic Society카지노 게임 컬렉션�s environmental scientists of the year in 2008 and were awarded the NSERC Brockhouse Prize for interdisciplinary research in 2014. In 2004, Dr. Smol won the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal, Canada카지노 게임 컬렉션�s highest award in science and engineering, given to one person a year.

카지노 게임 컬렉션�Scientists live in a different world, a charmed world. They don카지노 게임 컬렉션�t ever want to retire at 65,카지노 게임 컬렉션� he told the Ottawa Citizen a dozen years ago. He recently turned 65 and isn카지노 게임 컬렉션�t retiring.