{"id":29,"date":"2006-09-01T17:16:06","date_gmt":"2006-09-02T00:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=29"},"modified":"2008-08-05T10:36:24","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T14:36:24","slug":"taking-the-lake-bug-census","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=29","title":{"rendered":"Taking the lake bug census"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists dig bugs to help lakes’ health<\/a><\/p>\n

TAVARES — Like a fortune-teller poring over leaves in a tea cup, Sandi Hanlon-Breuer studies the worms and insect larvae living in the bottom of lakes to see the future.<\/p>\n

The Lake County Water Authority biologist has a giant collection of creepy-crawlers she has culled from the bottom of two of Central Florida’s biggest lake systems, the Clermont and Harris chains, during the past year.<\/p>\n

They tell her what has been going on in the lakes and offer clues about whether they should continue to stay healthy. It’s all part of a biological checkup of the two chains — the latest weapon the environmental scientists can use to protect water quality.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

If the lake is healthy and has good water quality, the samples will have relatively few bugs to pick through. But the healthy lakes usually have a wide diversity of species — often including larvae of mayflies, caddisflies and dragonflies in addition to snails, crayfish, leeches and other species.<\/p>\n

Lakes with poor water quality tend to be home mostly to aquatic worms and midge larvae and have little diversity.<\/p>\n

It’s not a job for the squeamish.<\/p>\n

Most of the bugs are dead by the time she gets around to studying them, but a few are still moving.<\/p>\n

“You get some that are still crawling around, and that’s a problem,” said Hanlon-Breuer, who has a master’s degree in lake science. “This isn’t anything I learned in college.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists dig bugs to help lakes’ health TAVARES — Like a fortune-teller poring over leaves in a tea cup, Sandi Hanlon-Breuer studies the worms and insect larvae living in the bottom of lakes to see the future. The Lake County … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-t","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":587,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=587","url_meta":{"origin":29,"position":0},"title":"When teens play with stem cells","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Congratulations to these inspiring teens for kicking butt at one heck of a demanding science competition recently: Top teen scientists seek real-world solutions in their research The Orlando Science Center [link] held the 10th Dr. Nelson Ying Science Competition on April 26 and 27. 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