Sunlight Into Fish Food
The results indicate that the benefits of floodplains are largely a result of the process of spreading and slowing floodwaters and are therefore not confined to any single location or water source. Just as agricultural crop plants convert sunlight and soil nutrients into food for people, fish food
is created as sunlight falls on to the water and algae, or phytoplankton, floating near the water’s surface use photosynthesis to convert sunlight into sugars.
The simple act of sunlight falling on water is the foundation of the river food web; sunlight makes algae, algae makes bugs, bugs make fish. When floodwaters spread out across the floodplain, a lot more sunlight hits the water than when rivers are confined between their banks allowing floodplains to function as the “solar panels” that power aquatic life in river systems. Over the last century construction of levees has cut off 95% of the Central Valley’s floodplains from its rivers. Story continued on page 54.
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Water dipped from the
fields swarms with so many zooplankton that Katz calls
it "zoop soup.”