Turbulence from speeding motor boats kills zooplankton, reveals study

Thursday, April 21st 2011 - 21:33 UTC

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Turbulence generated by speeding motor boats kills significant numbers of zooplankton, a study has revealed for the first time. Experiments on copepods, tiny crustaceans that live and float in water, show that a third die in waters frequented by propeller-driven boats. That is significantly more than in bodies of water not used by boats. Read full article

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GeoffWard
Luckily this is, in practice, only of very locallised importance in marina access channels.

In the open sea, such killing of zooplanktonic copepods is largely a nightime phenomenon because of the diurnal vertical migrations - so it rarely involves pleasure craft and the props of commercial craft do no such damage.

Also, the recycling of nutrients and zooplanktonic predation on disintegrated fellow members is very rapid, so there may be little nett loss.
Apr 22nd, 2011 - 04:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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