Wildlife Gardens

Using plants in this way is easier, more economical and more aesthetically pleasing than many of the heavy engineering solutions. By this method several typical lakeland and waterways problems can be solved in one go, and it is something that could easily be taken up by the pondkeeper and wild fowl conservationist too.

Article and photos by Tom Roach 

With the environment moving steadily up the political agenda, business is now trying to find new ‘soft’ engineering solutions as opposed to more traditional ‘hard’ revetment techniques. The recent summer rainfall has sparked debate, not only how to protect areas from flooding but the associated risks that flooding brings. Erosion of rivers and lakes is a natural process and ‘hard’ engineering techniques that have been employed in the past are increasingly being seen as inappropriate and unsustainable. This has led to forward thinkers finding innovative natural ways to curb the onset of erosion using techniques that would occur in nature.

           
     As you look down into that persistent pea soup gloom which seems forever to be the colour of your pool water and also an image of how you feel after a really bad day, just think what itsTypical algae that may populate any pond anywhere in the world like for those that live down there.
     Everyone knows that that 'peasoupy' colour is caused by millions of microscopic single celled beings classified as plants. They come in a myriad of forms; 20,000 distinct species in fact. Many of them are more like peculiar basic forms of animals, with whip-like flagellae or countless hairy cilia that flick backwards and forwards to propel them through their universe; there are some that are like threads of green hair or bristles that attach themselves to some stable underwater surface; others can be globs of jelly or even just a frothy scum that floats on the water surface. These are the algae, classified as plants because they contain the substance chlorophyll, which enables them to synthesise sugars and starches from carbon dioxide and water, using sunlight. A by-product from this process is oxygen, which is great for the animal life of the pool or pond where there are not enough higher plants in the environment to fulfil the same role.

     But life ain't all basking in sunlight and flagellating around you know. These guys have their problems. It's stressful out there and it's so crowded, crowded with fellow beings that just wont letup their none stop consuming and proliferation. And what is it like to be so small that even the individual molecules of water are like massive globs of greasy jelly that you are constantly squeezing through? What is more, in amongst it all, there are cruising huge Titanic bugs and beasties that only have algae on their minds for breakfast, lunch and tea!

Discovery of Cancer Fighting Chemical in Blue-Green Algae

This was the headline in "The Honoloulou Adviser" February 9th, 1996. Edwin Tanji reported that researchers Richard Moore and Gregory Patterson had found that a naturally occuring chemical in Blue-green algae was a very effective inhibiting agent of tumor growth.

Cryptophycin was the chemical and one of several "very powerful chemicals" that were contained in the pond scum. Work is now underway to produce it synthetically in a form for testing on humans, hopefully within two years. This is under a contract drawn out by Eli Lily and Co. The findings were further endorsed by research at Wayne State University which showed that cryptophycin "will inhibit cancer cells but have less effect on normal cells". This report came to me from an article in "The Water Garden Journal" Summmer 96 - the journal for the International Water Lily Society. In it Jack Honeycutt of the IWLS adds that blue-green algae is being used by AIDS patients and sufferers, either as a cure or to treatment for Aids. The information was available on the internet.

Here is the Wikepedia insert on Crytophycin:
“Definition- Cryptophycin is a potent cytotoxin produced by cyanobacteria of the genus Nostoc. It is also a promising drug in many cancer therapies.
Mode of Operation- Cryptophycin works by attacking the tubulin microfilaments found in eukaryotic cells and thereby preventing cell division and reproduction. The main hypothesis as to why the blue-green algae produce this energetically expensive compound is that it is used as a strong anti-fungal agent in order to prevent fungus or other types of algae from competing with the blue-green algae for nutrients and sunlight. This is necessary because the algae have no means of physically evading organisms that would settle on them or above them and block the sunlight that they need in order to photosynthesize. It has been found that the amount of cryptophycin being produced by any one alga at any given time depends on the current environmental conditions. The compound must be able to distinguish between destroying those microtubules that are foreign and its own cells so it has evolved to recognize cells which are proliferating too quickly to be its own cells by an as yet unknown mechanism. This property of cryptophycin allows it to recognize cancerous tumor cells, even those of “solid tumors” such as those in brain, colon, ovarian, prostate, pancreas, lung and breast cancers and it can destroy the cells of multi-drug resistant (MDR) tumors. These are the cancers that chemotherapy has the least ability to treat and account for eighty-five percent of all cancer deaths in the United States (Back, 2005).”

January 1954....Scientist researching for the U.S. Department for the interior reported that algae in contact with submerged concrete blocks caused their complete disintegration.

At one point the safety of the Manhattan bridge in New York was in jeopardy as engineers were being confounded bywhat was causing the disintegration of the foundations. It was algae.

Algae is a term that covers a vast range of relatively simple plants. They come as a single cell, a colony of cells in a filament, tube, strand or within a membrane. They are plants since they have chlorophyll within their cell structure. In the presence of carbon dioxide and, absolutely essentially, sunlight a process of photosynthesis is activated producing starch and related substances. Given phosphorus, nitrogen and someDifferent sorts of freshwater pollution algae other substances they can also build up proteins. During this process carbon dioxide is absorbed and oxygen is released.

All plants and animals 'respire'; that is absorbing oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. During the action of
Photosynthesis in plants, the production of oxygen exceeds by far the normal respiration of the organism. Algae as plants also naturally produce oxygen in sunlight. This oxygen is utilised by all the other inhabitants of the environment. In the pond environment, aerobic bacteria are the first in the chain of living things to utilise oxygen. They use it to process decaying organic matter back into compounds that are accessible for nutrition by plant life and are not toxic and non-polluting non-polluting to fish and even to man. It is estimated that the algae that lives in the sea provides 90% of the oxygen for the planet.

This alone makes algae one of the keystones to the existence of life on earth. Combine this with the essential role within the food chain of life in water we will see that the presence of algae is an essential ingredient to every water world from ocean to puddle, and as it happens, even every polluted ditch to everysceptic lagoon.

Photosynthesis allows plants to produce material such as the starches and oils from the inorganic elements in the environment to build the structure for the cell walls of the plant. Animals cannot do this but need carbohydrate for their own cell growth and structure. If were a very, very small animal then the basic ingredients of your larder will be algae, algae and more algae and you in turn will be meat for a larger animal.

Our usual mental pictures of algae are through the problems they cause. We only 'see' them when they 'bloom'. At various times of year and during certain conditions different species thrive to such an extent that they discolour water, usually green, or float in mats on the surface of the water in jelly like blobs or like green soggy candy floss. These are indicative of very particular conditions in that environment to cause that effect and it when they are causing a problem. But like a headache, algae growth is generally a symptom of some other underlying cause.

When things are nice and simple, and the ground is firm and flat, the easiest way put in a flexible liner is the standard conservationist technique and is only suitable for informal water gardens. This little article could easily have a heading:

How to Build Ponds in the 'Continental Fashion'

The reason this method is so popular is because it doesn't involve any construction at all. All you need is a good strong spade and back for digging, some pegs (longer than the intended depth of the pond), the corect amount of liner and underlay and a good quantity of soft heavy sand (Holme sand).