Zebra Mussels Facts
The zebra mussel is a non-native invasive species in freshwater environs throughout parts of the United States, coming from Europe in the late 1980s by accident. The zebra mussel takes its name from the pattern on its shell, which resembles that of the African land animal. Zebra mussels have the ability to attach to the hulls of boats, clog power plant and public water intake systems and adversely affect the ecosystems in which they exist.
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Size
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The National Atlas.gov website states that the average zebra mussel is the size of your fingernail, with some capable of growing to as wide as 2 inches. The striped, black-and-white pattern does not show up on every shell. The organism can survive in from 6 to 24 feet of water and lives between four and five years. The female reaches sexual maturity at 2 years old and can produce as many as 1 million eggs in a calendar year. Two percent of all zebra mussel eggs live to adult age.
History
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In 1988, biologists believe that a freighter came from a European freshwater port with zebra mussels in its ballast water, arriving in Lake St. Clair. This lake, which effectively joins Lake Erie and Lake Huron, is where the freighter then discharged the ballast, allowing the creature access to the water. The zebra mussel required just 10 years to successfully make it into all five Great Lakes, and since that time has made its way into the basins of the Mississippi, Hudson, Tennessee and Ohio rivers.
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Significance
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Zebra mussels attach themselves to objects with the use of an organ known as a byssus, a series of threads that holds the mussel fast to such things as water pipes, the hulls of boats and even slow-moving creatures such as turtles. People who do not realize that a zebra mussel has attached itself to their boat or boat trailer will then transport the creature to other places, such as inland lakes, where the zebra mussel will detach and begin to multiply.
Effects
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The zebra mussel is what biologists term a filter feeder, meaning it takes in water and filters out the microscopic algae and plankton-like creatures for nourishment. This results in problems, since large numbers of zebra mussels can reduce the amount of nutrients in water by great amounts. This precipitates much clearer water, which occurred in Lake Erie, according to the U.S. Geological Survey website. However, this reduces the amount of food available in the water column to native fish larvae and other aquatic creatures, bringing about their decline. In turn, animals dependent on fish and invertebrates, such as birds and mammals, also suffer.
Prevention/Solution
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It is impossible to get rid of zebra mussels once they have become entrenched in an aquatic ecosystem. Chemical controls powerful enough so that they would effect the mussels would also kill all other living things in the water. Biological control--introducing something that feeds on zebra mussels--is not practical, since there are so many zebra mussels. The prevention of spreading zebra mussels is attainable, as recreational boaters can inspect their hulls and trailers and dump any water from live wells and bilges before leaving a lake, keeping the zebra mussel from invading the next place the boater goes. In states such as Connecticut, it is the law that boaters must properly inspect their boats in this manner or suffer from a fine.
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References
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