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Invasive Mussels B E C O N T R O L L ED ? INVASIVE QUAGGA MUSSELS have dramatically altered the structure and function of the Lake Michigan ecosystem. To date, research on these mussels has focused on understanding how they affect lake nutrient and food web dynamics, with the goal of guiding lake management strategies rather than remediation. There have been virtually no attempts to remove this invasive species in the Great Lakes. While remediation is logistically impossible at the ecosystem scale, Harvey Bootsma, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a CIGLR Consortium institution, along with doctoral student Karen Baumann (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and collaborators Ashley Elgin, PhD, and Steve Ruberg from NOAA GLERL are exploring the potential of mussel removal as a method to restore critical habitats. “Our group started
team cleared a 40 square meter
area,” said Bootsma. “That
experimenting with
experimental plot containing
research has really helped
mussel removal
close to one million mussels at
us to understand how these
methods in 2016,”
Good Harbor Reef on the coast
mussels affect nearshore food
said Bootsma.
of Michigan’s Sleeping Bear
web structure and the growth
“Working with colleagues
Dunes National Lakeshore,
of nuisance algae. However,
from the National Park Service
where the rocky bottom has
at the whole ecosystem
and the Michigan Department
remained virtually mussel-free
scale the effects of invasive
of Natural Resources, we’ve
for the last 7 years.
mussels are primarily due
had some success removing mussels at small scales in the lake’s nearshore zone.” The
“We’re still trying to understand why the mussels have not returned to that
to the trillions of quagga mussels living on deeper, soft substrate, where biological,
“When most people look at a Great Lake, they don’t think about what’s happening on the bottom. But, we now know that bottom-dwelling quagga mussels have dramatically altered the way these unique aquatic ecosystems function and we started wondering – is there anything we can do about it?” — Harvey Bootsma, PhD
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