Apparently, the zebra mussels that are rife in the Great Lakes came here via a ballast water dump by a vessel that picked them up in Europe someplace. There is some question as to their ecological impact, and many people consider them to be somewhat of a disaster ecologically. The environmentalists seem to view them as a real pest and a threat. I’m wondering if they occupy similar niches in other parts of the world, i.e. invasive species that upset the standing ecosystems. Any help, dopers? xo, C.
America is not unique when it comes to being susceptible to invasive species. I don’t know a lot about zebra mussels, but milling around in the back of my mind there’s an idea that hundreds of millions of dollars a year are spent on keeping piping systems and other waterside infrastructure clear in the Great Lakes because of them. I don’t know how they effect the local aquatic life, but if they’re anything similar to the Potamicorbula we have invading the West Coast, serious changes in the life of ecosystems (like certain types of fish becoming incredibly rare, where before they were common enough to support fisheries) can occur because of the change in biological filtration and feeding of these molluscs.
I don’t have any cites handy - anyone have some helpful ones?
Wikipedia seems to have a pretty comprehensive article on the species.
Crayfish, yum!
ISTR non-native crayfish (as opposed to the native ones) are causing problems in Britain’s waterways by burrowing into the banks.
Great lakes? Hm… Introduce crayfish to eat the zebra mussels. Then introduce something else to control the crayfish. Then introduce something else to control the something elses. Add some tomato and garlic and such, and you have bouillabaisse!
My Niece works for the California Coastal Commision and they are working on trying to find ways to get rid of the mussels. They are a huge problem there.
Yeah, they’ve shut down our local lakes to trailered boats in order to try to keep them from invading.
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Johnny L.A.**, don’t worry, there’s already an invasive species, the Rusty Crayfish, in the Great Lakes.
http://www.great-lakes.net/envt/flora-fauna/invasive/invasive.html The great lakes started with the lamprey eels. They devastated the lake trout many years ago.
Zebra mussels are now largely gone from the Great Lakes.
They were driven out by the Quagga mussels, which are slightly larger and slightly more voracious than the Zebra mussels.
Yes, really.
The Master Speaks about zebra mussels in Lake Michigan.
I can’t really tell from the Wiki article or from Unca Cecil’s response if the animals are viewed elsewhere with the same hairy eyeball they are here. “I’m wondering if they occupy similar niches in other parts of the world, i.e. invasive species that upset the standing ecosystems.”
Could you sterilize all the crayfish so they couldn’t reproduce. That way after they were done eating the mussels they’d die out.
Actually I was just making a joke.
It wasn’t very good.
That’s too bad, I was looking forward to enjoying a fresh bucket of cajun crawdadds in Chicago sometime in the future.
Yes, at least in the UK.
http://www.introduced-species.co.uk/Species/molluscs/zebra%20mussel.htm
After each one has taken in all the toxins from 6000 zebra mussels? No thanks!