Mussels destroying link in Lake Michigan food web

[Staff]

Mussels destroying link in Lake Michigan food web
By John Flesher, Associated Press
Last update: February 18, 2009 - 5:15 PM

http://www.startribune.com/local/397...D3aPc:_Yyc:aUU
excerpts from above.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - A tiny, shrimplike creature that forms a crucial link in the Great Lakes food web has all but disappeared from Lake Michigan because of competition from invasive foreign mussels, scientists reported Wednesday.

Observations over a decade have documented a 96-percent drop-off of the amphipod species known as diporeia, according to scientists with NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor.

Previously, diporeia made up 70-80 percent of the whitefish diet. Now they are getting skinnier and less abundant as they subsist on the mussels, which are the aquatic equivalent of junk food — lower in calories than diporeia, their shells devoid of nutritional value.

[lonediver]

This would be the zebra and its stronger relation the quagga mussel These things are almost across all the lower 48 states now . Showed up in the Colorado river leess than three years ago and is now already in several of Arizona's inland irragation canal systems . Little to stop them that I see . There have been several "Don't move a mussel " programs tried by various states with little to no sucess . They are in California , several California lakes have banned new boat launchungs . Boats required to do pressure washings , severe fines imposed on boats found to have them when attempting to launch .

These critters are going to decimate wildlife while at the same time adding millons-billons in upkeep to water supplies .

[hazelnut]

http://www.solecregistration.ca/docu...EC%202008).pdf

Ive spent many happy hours diving for mussels off Traverse City and in Lake Superior.

I presume in the 1950s these would have been native mussels.

[lonediver]

A report on quagga's possible impact that you could find of interest ;

http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/progra...imony/SNWA.pdf

Mussels effect on birds in the great lakes region ( this is just the beginning )

http://blog.mlive.com/chronicle/2007...ing_birds.html

[lonediver]

Originally Posted by hazelnut

http://www.solecregistration.ca/documents/0068%20Native%20Freshwater%20Mussels%20(SOLEC%2020 08).pdf

Ive spent many happy hours diving for mussels off Traverse City and in Lake Superior.

I presume in the 1950s these would have been native mussels.

You presume correctly , native mussels are being decimated by the invaders ;

http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/broch.../musselpop.pdf


Gone are the happy days of your mussel diving !

[hazelnut]

Couldn't stay on the bottom long enough to collect a bucket of mussels now a days!

[Staff]

Zebra mussels force Prior Lake alert
Last update: April 14, 2009 - 11:52 PM

Zebra mussels force Prior Lake alert
excerpts from above:

"Everywhere we looked this morning, we found them," said Luke Skinner, supervisor of the invasive species program for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

"And we do have an inspection program; we will increase watercraft inspections on the lake. A lot of that is educational; people have to be willing to do this. But we will have more enforcement from conservation officers -- not all the time, but targeted enforcement."