By Beth Mole
Environmental change could be triggering “rock snot” algal blooms that harm fish and leave pristine riverbeds looking like tattered mats of soggy toilet paper.
Since the mid-2000s the goopy blooms, which look mucuslike up close, have cropped up in rivers worldwide. Researchers assumed that the responsible alga, Didymosphenia geminata, was a foreigner or a mutant aggressively invading clean watersheds. But a new analysis suggests that the alga nicknamed didymo is instead native to much of the globe, and that changes in water conditions are to blame for a recent boom in blooms. The controversial suggestion could upend strategies for preventing cases of rock snot.