Posted on 02/28/2014 1:51:59 PM PST by neverdem
Since they arrived in the Great Lakes in the 1980s, two species of mussels the size of pistachios have spread to hundreds of lakes and rivers in 34 states and have done vast economic and ecological damage.
These silent invaders, the quagga and zebra mussels, have disrupted ecosystems by devouring phytoplankton, the foundation of the aquatic food web, and have clogged the water intakes and pipes of cities and towns, power plants, factories and even irrigated golf courses.
Now the mussels may have met their match: Daniel P. Molloy, an emeritus biologist at the New York State Museum in Albany and a self-described “Bronx boy who became fascinated by things living in water.”
Inspired by Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in high school, Dr. Molloy, now 66, has long been a pioneer in the development of environmentally safe control agents to replace broad-spectrum chemical pesticides.
Leading a team at the museum’s Cambridge Field Research Laboratory in upstate New York, he discovered a bacterium, Pseudomonas fluorescens strain CL145A, that kills the mussels but appears to have little or no effect on other organisms...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Wonder what they taste like? Feed people, kill two birds.
Yeah, I was shocked having come back to Chicago after being away for over a decade and seeing how clear the water in Lake Michigan was. Visability was more then 40 feet.
I don’t need to hear about Rachel Carson. DDT, used often enough, also breads resistance in the pests we don’t want, e.g. mosquitoes. It’s easy to Google DDT resitance.
It’s easy to Google DDT resistance. Forgive the typo.
These thing are bad and really mess with intakes at power plants and elsewhere. Once they are in a watershed or river system, their progress is unstoppable -— until now, it appears.
Great if it works.
Round Goby is another invasive species in the great lakes. Eat a lot of game fish eggs.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
DDT is one of the most maligned chemicals around and does NOT cause eggshell thinning like the pseudo science once claimed. A small amount of powered DDT will protect an African hut from malaria carrying mosquitoes for a year.
Do they taste good? If so, there’s an opportunity.
Typo forgiven; go and sin no more. But Google is part of the enemy camp.
I don’t see the problem. Water in Lake Erie is clean and clear. As a kid, I remember it being muddy and murky - its now very attractive to swim in.
I have seen no drop off in sport fish - in fact, I see more bass and walleye, and fewer annoying sheepshead near shore. Seaweed still grows in the same protected coves and inlets as it used to as well.
Sadly all major internet portals are controlled by libertarians or progressives....
"There were no natural enemies to keep them in check."
Aye, there's the rub, when they invade open systems.
Now, if only we could get the FIBs to close off the Illinois River to keep the Asian Carp from getting into Lake Michigan.
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FReepmail me if you want on or off my combined microbiology/immunology ping list.
DH boats in California and Nevada and they ALWAYS do through checks of his fishing boat and recreational craft — says they’re looking for those mussels.
In “Life After People” it showed that the intake valves for the hydropower Hoover Dam have to be “blown out” every once in a while because of invasive “Eurasian” quagga mussels and without people, the power would eventually go off.
They’ve also invaded David, Mojave and Parker dams.
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