The Salton Sea can be found in the Imperial Valley.\u00a0 It has no rivers flowing into it to keep it replenished.\u00a0 In fact, it was an accidental lake.\u00a0\u00a0 In 1905, the Salton Sea was formed when a levy on the Colorado River broke causing flooding of the Imperial Valley.\u00a0 This led to an 18 month period where the water was freely flowing into the Basin.\u00a0 From this free flowing water, the Salton Sea was created.\u00a0 However, after the levy was fixed, there was no longer a flow of water into the lake.\u00a0 At this point, the lake would be replenished by water coming from the agriculture fields.\u00a0 The farmers in the Imperil Valley would flood their fields with water and then the run off would make its way into the Salton Sea.\u00a0 The water would take with it the pesticides used in the fields as well.\u00a0 However, the use of field flooding in agriculture has been decreasing over the years, which has led to a decrease in the Salton Sea\u2019s size.<\/p>\n
In all bodies of water you will find bacteria.\u00a0 Most of the bacteria that exists in bodies of water is harmless in humans.\u00a0 There are types that can cause harm to people.\u00a0 However, people are not the only things that can be harmed by bacteria, fish can be too.\u00a0 Bacteria can also decrease the level of oxygen that is present in a lake.\u00a0 In order to survive, the bacteria needs to take up oxygen.\u00a0 Therefore, in a lake it will eat away at the dissolved oxygen that is present in the water.<\/p>\n
In this lab, we took water samples from the Salton Sea.\u00a0 Once we were back in lab we created plates with the water to see what how much bacteria was present in the water.\u00a0 We placed different amounts of the Salton Sea water onto agar plates in order to allow the bacteria to grow.\u00a0 After five days, the plates were checked to see how much growth was present.\u00a0 It was found that in the amount we plated there was around 120 bacterial colonies for every milliliter of water.\u00a0 This means that for everyone milliliter of water in the Salton Sea there would be around 120 bacteria colonies present.<\/p>\n
We also confirmed there was bacteria present in the water by taking a reading of the dissolved oxygen levels of the water.\u00a0 A reading of the water was taken and then it was caped and placed in a dark cupboard for five days.\u00a0 After five days the concentration of dissolved oxygen was checked again and it had decreased.\u00a0 Due to the fact that there were no interaction s able to occur in the water, it was confirmed that there was bacteria present eating up the dissolved oxygen.<\/p>\n
I think it is important to understand the presence of bacteria in the Salton Sea.\u00a0 This is due to the fact that it is affecting the ecosystem.\u00a0 Not only can some of the bacteria have the possibility to negatively harm the fish, it is also using up the limited supply of dissolved oxygen.\u00a0 This is then in turn decreases the fish\u2019s ability to survive.\u00a0 This can in turn affect the migrating process of birds.\u00a0 The Salton Sea is an important ecosystem for multiple facets so it is important to understand what is affecting it.\u00a0 By understanding what is affecting the ecosystem we can begin to make changes to improve it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Salton Sea can be found in the Imperial Valley.\u00a0 It has no rivers flowing into it to keep it replenished.\u00a0 In fact, it was an accidental lake.\u00a0\u00a0 In 1905, the Salton Sea was formed when a levy on the Continue reading