Zebra Mussel- direct all questions here!

[gangrel441]

When Zebra mussels take hold they cover everything. Their shells litter the beach and cut peoples feet as they are sharp as razors. They are filter feeders and they eat the zoo plankton which the food chain relys on to survive. First the bait fish get decimated as they feed on the plankton which has been depleted by the zebra's. No bait fish, no game fish. Thats the bad news. The good news. Where once the viz in Lake michigan was ten or fifteen feet on a normal day, now its forty to one hundred. We have an invasive specie of fish in the great lakes called the Goby. The Goby just loves to eat the zebra mussels. The Department of Natural resources is up in arms about both species, but like the true bottom feeders they are, that have once again neglected to do thier homework. The Goby's are the Key to controlling the zebra's. Mother natures fix. If one has spent time observing these things they would have noticed the previous years Goby population explosion. They would have also noticed the marked decline in the zebra population. I made several dives in Door county Wisconsin this fall and noticed that the Goby population is down too now. The small mouth bass population is really healthy. Hmmmm?? If one lays on the bottom, Goby's being curious little creatures will come and observe you. I have this behaviour documented on video. Funny thing is, when the small mouth Bass come into view the Goby's dissappear. Hmm, could this mean that mother nature has been working on the problem? I think so.
Pandoras box has been openned and we will always have zebras now and we will always have Goby's. You can power wash all the boats you want, you can spend all the tax dollars you want to study the issue. In the end, all the efforts you expend are in vain. Mother nature will do what she wants. Thats just the way it is. Change happens. The sooner we get used to that the better off we will be. It is important to study the goings on out there, sometimes there are things we can do to help. But that is a slippery slope. In this case, its best to let things run its course.

Jim

Goby is a broad term. There are several species of native goby in the Great Lakes. The invasive species you are speaking of is the Round Goby. However, this picture isn't as rosy as you paint it.

Sure, Round Gobies eat Zebra Mussels. However, the Round Gobies are more of a threat to the Great Lakes ecosystem than the Zebra Mussels. The reason the Round Goby eats Zebra Mussels is because it is a relatively indiscriminate eater. This is problematic because it also eats fish eggs, fish fry, and larval crustacians. IN INCREDIBLE QUANTITES. Sure, cutting down the Zebra population will bring back the plankton which forms the base of the food chain. The Round Goby, however, is decimating the critters that are supposed to be eating that plankton in the first place and forming the next link in that delciate chain. So far, there isn't anything that is eating the Round Gobies, which means they don't have a spoton the food chain.

If some local species of catfish were to learn to feast on Round Goby, then we would probably be golden! Well, that is, except for the Asian Carp and Asian Snakehead Fish that have found their way into our waters. But that is a discussion for a different day...

 

[DavidPT40]

I read that gobies do eat zebra mussels. And in a picture I saw, several zebra mussels were intact inside of a gobies stomach. So how does the goby's stomach get past the calcium shell of the mussel?

If I were going to guess, I would think that the mussel dies from suffocation in the gobies stomach, thereby opening up its shell a tiny bit, then stomach acid is able to get into the shell and digest it.

 

[akdeepdiver]

I am not a fan of invasive species, and would never purposly transplant them, but I will say that when I used to dive in Lake Ontario, we had visability most days of over 100 feet. The do do a exellent job of filtering.

 

[Sideband]

I read last year that a single female ZM can deposit a million eggs a year. Wow.

Joe

 

[ComputerJoe]

Gobies have been being found in the stomachs of Walleye, Trout, Carp. They have also been how an aquatic botulism killed off thousands of the same fish in Lake Huron last year. The story goes that the Gobies got it from the Zebra Mussels.
"There's a gray cloud in every silver lining"