Biophilic Regeneration Series:
In Case of Trophic Cascade
The Biophilic Regeneration Series is a series of performative sculptures. These sculptures address the disconnect between humans and our environment. How can one single human address the enormity of climate change and the range of negative effects humans have on our planet. Sometimes the solutions seem absurd and hopeless, but yet taking action does matter.
In Case of Trophic Cascade was created at the Flathead Lake Biological Research Center while in residency with Open Air Montana.
During In Case of Trophic Collapse the performer wades out into Flathead Lake clutching a small inner tube, which they hope will protect them from causing unintentional harm to the ecosystem surrounding them. They slowly begin releasing some of the most basic components of the food web, the native phytoplankton, out into the lake.
The Food Web Story of Flathead Lake
While staying at Flathead Lake I learned the lake’s food web story of Trophic Collapse. Trophic Collapse is a side-effect when a species within an ecosystem is reduced, removed or added. This change triggers a series of events or a cascade which then alters the structure or balance of an entire ecosystem. In Flathead lake the cascade was triggered by humans when State fisheries managers introduced the opossum shrimp Mysis relicta. The shrimp was meant to be a food source for the kokanee salmon, but the salmon is a day feeder and the Mysis shrimp stays out of sight at the bottom of the lake during daylight. The Mysis did provide a food source to lake trout which grew so large they began to eat the salmon and many other fish in the lake. Also the Mysis began feeding on the zooplankton Daphne which was the main food source of the kokanee salmon. With so many changes in the food web the salmon disappeared from the ecosystem, and once the Salmon disappeared so did the eagles and grizzly bears which came to feed on them as they spawned.
Researchers collect and count plankton every month to at the Flathead Lake Bio Station to monitor the health of the lake. The forms seen in In Case of Trophic Collapse are based off of phytoplankton seen under the microscope that were collected during this monitoring program.
