Students with a taste for adventure
Nov 28 2009 by Tony Henderson, The Journal
Environment Editor Tony Henderson talks to students who spent summers with a difference.
IT may be tiny, but a type of algae is capable of causing very big problems. The algae, didymosphenia geminata, can be highly invasive in fresh water areas as far apart as New Zealand, Europe and the United States.
At its worst, it completely covers steam beds and aquatic plants with a thick layer of gelatinous slime, blocking out the light and choking habitats.
Newcastle University geography student Emma Shearing, 21, set off for the United States on an expedition to study the algae on the Little Truckee River on the edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California.
The Stampede and Boca reservoirs are part of the river system, and Emma set up base at a remote camping site with colleague Andy Rost.
“The only facility was a toilet and we had to bring all our own resources,” said Emma.
One of the mysteries surrounding the algae is why it spreads rapidly in some locations but not in others.
The algae, which is present in the south of England, can survive for 48 hours on wet surfaces and can be spread by boating and angling activities. “It looks like green slime but feels like cotton,” says Emma. Problems with aquatic plants are also common closer to home. Last month, anglers were urged to help stop the spread of a water plant which is wreaking havoc in the Lake District.
Introduced from Tasmania in 1911, crassula helsii – or Australian swamp stonecrop – is affecting large areas of water and damp ground.
A new Lake District National Park leaflet highlights the threat posed by the plant, which is spread by footwear, fishing tackle, boats and trailers. It is causing damage in Bassenthwaite Lake, Coniston Water, Grasmere, Derwentwater, Rydal Water and Windermere by forming a thick carpet of vegetation, killing other plants and severely damaging ecosystems of invertebrates and fish.
In past years, campaigns by Northumberland Wildlife Trust and funded by the Environment Agency have been aimed at stopping the sale in garden centres of invasive water plants like Australian swamp stonecrop and water fern.
Newcastle University geography student Katherine Sheinman, 20, travelled to Jaffa, one of the few cities in Israel where Jews, Muslims and Christians live together.
She investigated how pressure is building on the Israeli-Arab population to move to less attractive areas and the effect this is having on the lives of women.
