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Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) bloom on Lake Erie (United States) in 2009. These kinds of algae can cause harmful algal bloom. A harmful algal bloom (HAB), or excessive algae growth, is an algal bloom that causes negative impacts to other organisms by production of natural algae-produced toxins, water deoxygenation, mechanical damage to other organisms, or by other means.
Wildlife which drank the water died rapidly and terribly. [5] Most reported incidents of poisoning by microalgal toxins have occurred in freshwater environments, and they are becoming more common and widespread. For example, thousands of ducks and geese died drinking contaminated water in the midwestern United States. [6]
Plant defense against herbivory or host-plant resistance is a range of adaptations evolved by plants which improve their survival and reproduction by reducing the impact of herbivores. Many plants produce secondary metabolites, known as allelochemicals, that influence the behavior, growth, or survival of herbivores. These chemical defenses can ...
There is a distinction between plants that are poisonous because they naturally produce dangerous phytochemicals, and those that may become dangerous for other reasons, including but not limited to infection by bacterial, viral, or fungal parasites; the uptake of toxic compounds through contaminated soil or groundwater; and/or the ordinary ...
Cardenolide toxins sequestered during the Monarch's larval stage from feeding on the plant remains in the adult, making it unpalatable to predators. Chemical defense is a strategy employed by many organisms to avoid consumption by producing toxic or repellent metabolites or chemical warnings which incite defensive behavioral changes.
The heavy metals that plants extract are toxic to the plants as well, and the plants used for phytoextraction are known hyperaccumulators that sequester extremely large amounts of heavy metals in their tissues. Phytoextraction can also be performed by plants that uptake lower levels of pollutants, but due to their high growth rate and biomass ...
A toxin from Corynebacterium insidiosum causes plugging of the plant stem interfering with water movement between cells. [7] Amylovorin is a polysaccharide from Erwinia amylovora and causes wilting in rosaceous plants. A polysaccharide from Xanthomonas campestris obstructs water flow through phloem causing black rot in cabbage.
When phosphates are introduced into water systems, higher concentrations cause increased growth of algae and plants. Algae tend to grow very quickly under high nutrient availability, but each alga is short-lived, and the result is a high concentration of dead organic matter which starts to decompose.