Word: plankton
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Terres also explores the arcane richness of animal behavior and man's beliefs about it. Ibis guano, the reader learns, enriches the ecology of the Everglades by increasing plankton growth; a loon can be imitated on the ocarina; geese occasionally become homosexual, pair-bonding for life even when heterosexual partners are present; an auk's egg is a marvel of engineering, shaped so that it will not roll from its cliff-edge nest...
...Fred Gwynne '51 as an oafish Pentagon general are particularly effective in their roles, and Madeleine Kahn, though not blessed with a very demanding part, provides some of the funnier moments at the Center. They are all able to keep their jokes alive, and Arkin's evolution from minuscule plankton to neurotic 20th-century man should be recorded as one of the funnier scenes in contemporary movie-making. But one scene doesn't make a whole movie. We can't expect Brickman to be brilliant for the entire 90 minutes, but there are times he falls so far short...
...monuments to living organisms. After a number of such rain showers or highly acidic snow melts, a lake's pH* can plunge low enough to impair the egg-producing ability of fish. Decomposition of organic matter slows, probably because of a loss of scavenging microorganisms. The number of plankton falls off sharply, depleting a vital link in the food chain. Finally, the water appears blue, clear-and virtually lifeless...
...feet at its deepest; one fisherman's tale has it that a ship's crew was able to play baseball on a shoal after a storm. The Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current converge at the site and circulate a hearty brew of nutrients on which plankton thrive and proliferate. Fish in turn feed on the plankton and spawn seasonally in the shoals, coming from as far north as the Arctic, as far south as the Carolina coast...
...warm Gulf Stream. Broadbills normally stay hundreds of feet down-one reason they are so hard to catch-but in the early '70s, Cuban refugee fishermen discovered that these fish rose from the depths at night, apparently to feed on squid that in turn were feeding on microscopic plankton drifting in the cooling sea. In the past two years some 400 swordfish have been landed off lower Florida, including several world-record broadbills weighing more than 600 lbs. Top fishermen from around the country now fly down to Miami to try their luck and the new techniques...