The term “invasive species” doesn’t just include animals. Invasive plants also can upset local habitats and food webs, threatening ecosystems along the Great Lakes shorelines and inland waterways thanks to a lack of predators and prodigious methods of reproducing.
Aquatic Invasive Species
Members of the Great Lakes Commission and other leaders from the US and Canada took to Capitol Hill in March to attend the Semiannual Meeting of the Great Lakes Commission (GLC), as well as Great Lakes Day, an annual event that brings together regional organizations with federal policymakers to…
In Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, where the culture and long-standing heritage of First Nations and Tribes are a vibrant part of the region’s lifestyle and economy, the inherent value of the lakes stood out as the key message to the IJC at its first public meeting in 2017 on the Great Lakes.
There’s something in the water that can spoil a quagga mussel’s romantic evening, according to a recent research project that found some species of cyanobacteria - known more commonly as toxic blue-green algae - can keep quagga mussels from successfully reproducing.
The makeup of Great Lakes fisheries could change in coming decades due to invasive species and the effects of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, as popular stocked Pacific salmon species are numerically surpassed by native fish like walleye and lake trout.
Invasive zebra mussels are working their way west from the Great Lakes to the Rainy-Namakan basin while other invasive species already in the water system continue to spread. Local officials are trying to slow and halt their progress through a combination of education, outreach and boat inspections.
Invasive zebra and quagga mussels have made their way westward since being detected in the Great Lakes in 1988, recently encroaching into Montana waterways. The economic and ecological impact has water managers in the sensitive and sizable Columbia River basin – located in the Pacific Northwest –…
Over the past 175 years, more than 180 aquatic, non-native species have found a home in the Great Lakes.
An alien species of catfish beaches itself on the shore and gobbles up pigeons. It’s called the wels catfish, and it could make a home in the Great Lakes.
Quagga mussels. Hemimysis. Alewives. Sea lamprey. Phragmites. These are just a few of the more than 180 non-native species that have entered the Great Lakes basin over the past few centuries.