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David Schindler Essay

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David Schindler is an American/Canadian limnologist who has put great effort into studying inland waters, ensuring that these bodies of water remain safe for the ecosystem. Born in Fargo, North Dakota, he spent much of his childhood in his grandparents’ farm, surrounded by many lakes. For this reason, he gained great interest in fishing and studying freshwaters. He has made significant contributions to the field of limnology by helping identify detergent phosphates as major pollutants of lakes in the 1960s, determining that acid rain was the main cause of large fish deaths in the 1970s and 1980s, and pointing out the potential damage of oil sands to bodies of water.

David played a key role in isolating phosphorus as a major cause of algae overgrowth that led to eutrophication, a process that reduced oxygen in lakes. In 1968, David directed a group of scientists to study this process. During their research, he and the group experimentally manipulated parts of nearly 46 lakes, and from their results, they discovered that when lakes are high in phosphorus, the overgrowth of algae is triggered. The large population of algae then decreases the lakes’ oxygen supply, …show more content…

Based on their results, when the concentration of hydronium ions significantly exceeded that of hydroxide ions and the pH of the of the water went below 7.0 because of acid rain, some species such as opposum shrimp would not survive, disturbing the food chain and harming other organisms. David and his team captured the effects of acid rain through photographs that later sparked public attention, which resulted in the implementation of laws to decrease pollutants causing acid rain, such as reducing industrial emissions. The results that David and his team achieved were crucial in understanding the extent of contamination that acid rain could cause in an

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