Inspecting for Zebra Mussels

[oodlesiggy]

Other than clinging to everything and plugging up water lines, what problem do they cause? They don't hurt the quality of fish and they filter the water making it cleaner. I'm not trying to start an arguement, and always take the necessary precautions when leaving a lake known to have them, but it seems like it's all just a bunch of hype to me.

[MOPanfisher]

There are certainly the issues with intakes, however there are also issues with the smell of millions of zebra mussels left behind after a lake rise, the photos of zebra mussel covered bushes, and picnic tables from Bull Shoals are an example.  In addition they cause problems with dam control structures, etc.  The clearer water does allow for additional sunlight to penetrate the water column, which will allow photosynthetic plants to grow deeper and better.  I don't think they will ruin anything, but  they  are an exotic species that has little in the way of predators, as a rule exotics are not great additions to the environment.

[fishinwrench]

The biologists have taken ZM as their pet study propaganda project so they have a reason to justify their phoney baloney jobs.   

ZM aren't hurting anything, and even if they were..... whaddaya gonna do about it?    Nothing.   

I'm still waiting for didymo to decimate a fishery, but that hasn't happened yet either.  Haven't even heard the word "didymo" for quite awhile on any fish talk forum, so it must have been a bunch of freaking out about nothing.   Same with the Zebra mussels. In a few more years you won't even remember what a zebra muscle is.  

[Jerry Rapp]

FW has it correct.  Just a money grab by researchers.  I was involved with them back in the 90's when they first showed up.  I realized quickly an engineer could not talk sense to a biologist.  Thank God Climate Change will kill us before the Zebra's do.

[fishinwrench]

Time to quit worrying about Zebra muscles anyway. We have serious milkweed issues to worry about now.  

[Gavin]

Just a matter of time if the Z-mussels like their new home. Probably would be in most places if they liked it now, but they are not. That might change in 10, 20, 50, 100 years.

[MOPanfisher]

I suspect they will adapt in time, most invasive are pretty good at adapting.  It could well be that they ate in Pomme and Stockton but the conditions are not suited to an explosive growth.

Wrench, I heard that the Milkweed Union was going to try to put missouri dairies out of business by producing hybrid plants that will out produce a holstein, supposedly being pushed by Donald Trump.

[DADAKOTA]

Come up and look at the zebra mussels in Lake Lotawana.  I've seen pontoons come out of there where you could not put another mussel anywhere below waterline.  They also add extra weight to docks, lifts, etc. and have caused issues that way as well.  I have heard they do not like environments where the water gets real warm.

[MOPanfisher]

Somewhat interesting article I receved in e-mail this morning.  Zequanox, which I have heard of, is apparently a derivative of a naturally occurring soil bacteria, maybe some lakes have an extra high level of the bacteria and it acts as an inhibitor??

 

Michigan has new weapon against invasive zebra and quagga mussels

Detroit Free Press

By Keith Matheny

Monday, August 15, 2016

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/08/14/researchers-enlist-new-tool-against-invasive-zebra-quagga-mussels/88481078/

 

 

Researchers say they believe they may have finally found a safe, effective means of combating one of the Great Lakes' most persistent and damaging aquatic invaders — zebra and quagga mussels. But completely eradicating the invaders from Michigan's waterways remains a pipe dream, experts say.

 

Almost three decades after being discovered in Lake St. Clair, likely arriving in the ballast water of freighters that traveled through eastern Europe, zebra and quagga mussels can now be abundantly found in each of the Great Lakes and most major river systems in the eastern U.S. Though only about the size of a dime, the mussels reproduce quickly, eat voraciously and clump together, clinging to almost anything in the water.

 

► Related:NASA joins fight against invasive Great Lakes shoreline plant

► Related:Goats eating invasive plants in Ottawa County

 

They have all but crowded out native clam species and have disrupted the base of the aquatic food chain — vacuuming up the tiniest plants and animals upon which aquatic insects and small fish feed. Those, in turn, are eaten by the large game fish that create a multibillion-dollar fishing tourism industry in Michigan. Zebra and quagga mussels also cost industries, businesses and communities $5 billion between 1993 and 1999 by clogging water intake pipes, according to congressional research, with $3.1 billion of that cost coming from the power industry alone.

 

The few options to fight the mussels' spread haven't worked beyond an isolated area or threatened other aquatic life.  But a relatively new product, expanded for use in a new way, is showing promise.

 

Zequanox is derived from dried, dead cells from a common North American soil bacterium, Pseudomonas fluorescens. The stuff is everywhere, said Carolyn Link, a regulatory affairs manager with Marrone Bio Innovations, the product's manufacturer, based in Davis, Calif.

 

"You probably have Pseudomonas under your fingernails right now," she said.

 

The state of New York's power industry was looking for a solution to its increasingly clogged water-intake pipes full of zebra and quagga mussels, without using harsh chemicals "that are known to be harmful to the environment, the equipment, and can be harmful to workers," said Keith Pitts, a vice president of regulatory and government affairs with Marrone Bio.

Mussels on the moveBuy Photo

 

Mussels on the move (Photo: Martha Thierry, Detroit Free Press)

 

The industry commissioned help from the New York State Museum's Cambridge Field Research Laboratory, and a biologist there, Daniel Malloy, discovered Pseudomonas' effectiveness in eradicating zebra and quagga mussels. Active compounds from the dead bacterial cells break down the stomach lining of zebra and quagga mussels relatively quickly — but have little effect on anything else in the water. Scientists aren't exactly sure why, but it could be because native organisms are conditioned to the North American bacteria, while zebra and quagga mussels, originating from eastern Europe, are not, Link said.

 

Marrone Bio now commercially produces Malloy's discovery, creating Zequanox from dead Pseudomonas bacteria cells cultivated in large fermenters at their facility in Bangor, Mich., about 20 miles west of Kalamazoo. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved Zequanox for use in water-intake pipes in 2012, and then expanded its possible applications to include open water in 2014. It has also been issued a "tolerance exemption," meaning the EPA determined "there is no concentration of this product that is harmful as a residue, including coming into contact with food or water that you drink," Pitts said.

 

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was involved in years of testing of Zequanox on "non-target animals" — basically, everything else that could be in a lake.

 

"It's a fairly specific product for (zebra and quagga) mussels. It's very promising that it doesn't just kill everything when you put it in the water," said Jim Luoma, a research fisheries biologist with the USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center in La Crosse, Wis.

 

But thus far, Zequanox has only been used in isolated portions of lakes that were cordoned off with special barriers. Now, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization in northern Lower Michigan, the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, is working with Marrone Bio, state and federal environmental agencies and multiple universities to conduct the first open-water test.

 

Tip of the Mitt officials hope to find their test lake this summer, one that has both native and invasive mussels, said Matt Claucherty, the organization's water resources specialist.

 

"The project is designed to gauge the effectiveness to eliminate invasive mussels" in an open-water application, "but it's also to look at any ill effects to native mussels," he said. "We also need to find a lake that has calm bays — lake currents are going to be something we'll have to look at, and, hopefully, minimize any dilution forces."

 

But the top priority, Claucherty said, is making sure lake associations and those who use the chosen lake are "on board and comfortable with this," he said.

 

"The reality is, this stuff isn't poison," he said. "It's not even a chemical. It's a desiccated bacterial cell — not even a living bacterial cell. It's found in soil naturally."

 

Further research will help determine the most limited concentrations and exposure durations of Zequanox that work on zebra and quagga mussels in open water, while not harming other aquatic life, Link said. Company officials may also learn of adjustments they can make to formulations of the product, currently designed for intake pipes, that make it more effective in open-water applications, she said.

 

After finding a suitable test lake, researchers will next summer do test applications of Zequanox in about a 3-acre portion of its lake bottom, Claucherty said. In addition to measuring Zequanox's effectiveness against zebra and quagga mussels and whether native mussel species are impacted, University of Michigan scientists specializing in algae, invertebrates such as aquatic insects, and water quality will also make evaluations, he said. That ongoing review will likely extend into 2018, he said.

 

"Stepping stones," Claucherty said. "We're building upon a body of knowledge surrounding this method of control, and hopefully, advancing it in a way that opens doors for control of invasive mussels — actually restoring portions of lakes, creating refuges for native mussels would be on the horizon."

 

If that sounds like a less-lofty goal than totally eliminating zebra and quagga mussels and returning the Great Lakes and other waterways to their natural balances, it's just being realistic.

 

"You're not going to eradicate zebra mussels from a water body once they are established," Luoma said.

 

But Zequanox could perhaps be used to control the invaders in at least some locations and situations, he said.

[MOPanfisher]

Received confirmation of zebra mussels in the Lower Truman lake area yesterday.  So they are now in Truman as well.