Photosynthesis takes place in plants and cyanobacteria even when they are underwater. Photosynthesis involves the exchange of gases with the surroundings. Occasionally such a gas release underwater becomes obvious.
On a hike into Kokanee Glacier Park, my daughter, Cynthia, took this sequence of increasingly close pictures at a alpine pond. The view presented a mystery to us all until an aquatic biologist wrote and said: “Yep – very pretty pic of gas bubbles from submerged photosynthesis, hard to tell if that’s a crust of cyanobacteria or early stage of moss development that’s making the bubbles.”
Cynthia Fraser’s pictures are used with permission.