Egan, Dan,

Zebra Mussels Among Invasive Species Harming Lake Michigan. Dan Egan. - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2005. - SIRS Enduring Issues 2006. Article 26, Environment, 1522-3205; .

Articles Contained in SIRS Enduring Issues 2006. Originally Published: Zebra Mussels Among Invasive Species Harming Lake Michigan, Jan. 3, 2005; pp. n.p..

"The Great Lakes zebra mussel invasion in the late 1980s didn't initially create alarm. It didn't even raise eyebrows. A student on a field trip plucked the first cluster of fingernail-size mussels from the waters of Lake St. Clair in the summer of 1988. She didn't know what she had. Neither did her professors at Ontario's University of Windsor, who sent a sample to a mollusk expert in Europe. The diagnosis came back: Dreissena polymorpha, a tiny but prolific filter feeder native to the Caspian Sea region that spreads as tiny larvae on lake currents." (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL) This article describes the environmental impact of zebra mussels on the "world's largest freshwater system," noting that "invasive mussels are now being linked to everything from a collapse of the bottom of the Great Lakes food chain to the noxious weedy sludge along Wisconsin's Lake Michigan shoreline to an explosion in toxic algae blooms across the region."

1522-3205;


Algal blooms
Biological invasions
Endangered ecosystems
Food chains (Ecology)
Lake ecology
Nonindigenous pests
Water pollution
Zebra mussel


Great Lakes Region
Michigan, Lake

AC1.S5

050