Terrific story………….if it were true.
I’m calling them on it, I’m calling it handwaving rubbish.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140218-salmon-fertilising-the-forests
“Eighty percent of the nitrogen in the forest’s trees comes from the salmon”.
…
This should be able to be determined fairly accurately AFAICT.
i think Attenborough had a segment in one of his shows about this.
I read years ago about the Americans’ ‘Pilgrim fathers’ and how the American natives showed then how to grow corn.
The ‘civilised’ and piously Christian Pilgrims scoffed at the natives’ heathen practice of giving the ‘sacrifice’ of a small fish at the base of each cornstalk, and refused to have any part of such things.
Only after their corn failed spectacularly did they think that there might be something to it.
Of course, the fish provided the trace elements which the cornstalks needed in excess of what the soil could supply.
Boris said:
i think Attenborough had a segment in one of his shows about this.
I saw it but it was a long time ago.
i have the memory of 10 000 goldfish, spock.
There have been heaps of docos on bears and the salmon run but this is the first one that claims that the bears take the fish way into the forest and fertilise all the trees.
And it seems to be more of a clever corporate promotion rather than a serious documentary.
sciencey paper.
Peak Warming Man said:
There have been heaps of docos on bears and the salmon run but this is the first one that claims that the bears take the fish way into the forest and fertilise all the trees.
The are hundreds of tons of salmon that swim up rivers and streams, where they die after spawning unless eaten beforehand. They are preyed upon by many predators, and these animals will defecate far and wide, besides that huge numbers of fish will die in the rivers and tributaries and probably washed up on the banks to rot away. The nutrition I would think would mostly flow downstream and probably fertilise riparian vegetation downstream, but I cannot see how it, or the dropping of animals could fertilise trees far from the waterways. I don’t believe animals would take the fish any distance from the river before eating it.
Boris said:
i have the memory of 10 000 goldfish, spock.
So was that nature or nurture?
Do you do diabolical tests on goldfish?
Reminds me of the Capelin run in St Johns Newfoundland.
They were too many for the predator fish and the local humans…
So after the run the farmers came and took (bring out your dead) to fertilise their potatoes…
Don’t say nothing about fish’n‘chips.
Mr Ironic said:
Reminds me of the Capelin run in St Johns Newfoundland.
They were too many for the predator fish and the local humans…
So after the run the farmers came and took (bring out your dead) to fertilise their potatoes…
Don’t say nothing about fish’n‘chips.
It rots down very quickly and like liquid fish manure you can buy today, it works very well.