Invasive Species in the Great Lakes

Introduction

The Great Lakes are composed of five freshwater lakes: Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie. Located in North America, the lakes are pressed between Canada and the United States and are connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence River. The Great Lakes contain some of the largest bodies of freshwater in the world (in terms of surface area) including Lake Superior which has an approximate surface area of 31,700 mi².

Invasive Animal Species in Great Lakes

The list of introduced animal species for the Great Lakes region is quite extensive, but there are several notable species that have historically impacted the ecosystems. To clarify, the difference between an invasive species and an introduced species, also known as a non-native species, is that invasive species are harmful to the system it comes in contact with.

Significant invasive animal species in the Great Lakes include the sea lamprey, alewife, Asian carp, zebra mussels, and the spiny waterflea. The sea lamprey was first introduced to the Great Lakes system in the early 1800’s in Lake Ontario. It was denied access to the rest of the Great Lakes system until the developments to the Welland Canal in the early 1900’s. These snake-like organisms parasitically feed on the lake trout to the point where the lake trout population plummeted drastically. From 1935-1947, the amount of lake trout harvested from Lake Huron dropped from 2.7 to 0.18 million kilograms. Only 0.16 million kilograms of lake trout were caught from Lake Michigan in 1949, and only 0.23 million kilograms were caught from Lake Superior in 1960.

The diminished lake trout population affected the ecosystem dynamics and the economic status of the fisheries. The alewife population, which was normally kept in balance from the predation of lake trout, now increased to overwhelming amounts. Because the alewife and whitefish shared the common food source of plankton, the whitefish population declined due to the alarming amount of alewife in the ecosystems.

Figure 1: This image depicts the symbiotic relationship the sea lamprey had with the lake trout and how it affected the majority of the ecosystem. With decreased lake trout numbers, the population of alewife spiked and overconsumed the plankton. The plankton was a shared resource with the whitefish which could not keep up with the overly abundant alewife.

A potential invasive species that has become of concern is the Asian Carp. In 2016, it was believed that the grass carp (a subspecies of Asian carp) was reproducing in Lake Erie which raised a wide-level concern. Asian carps were primarily used for improving the health of aquacultures by controlling the number of problematic species of plants and animals. Now, their populations have accumulated and expanded throughout many of the major waterways in the U.S., including the silver and bighead carp which now reside in many parts of the Mississippi River drainage basin.

Invasive Plant Species in Great Lakes

Some of the more notable invasive plants to the Great Lakes include the common reed, reed canary grass, Eurasian milfoil, purple loosestrife, curly pondweed, frogbit, and the non-native cattail. Overgrowth, loss of structural diversity, and decline in forage value are all ways non-native plants degrade the habitat and affect the native plant species.

Prevention and Regulation of Invasive Species in the Great Lakes

Preventing new, non-native species from being introduced into the Great Lakes ecosystems and regulating the already existing invasive species could be more realistic than attempting full eradication of certain species. One of the main sources of invasive species to the Great Lakes is from the disposal of ballast water from incoming or outgoing ships. The initiatives from the Ballast Water Management Convention outlined numerous details regarding the standards for discharge of international cargo ships. Many researchers are designing ways to address this issue through the use of Early Detection Rapid Response (EDRR) which prevent the establishment of invasive species. Hoffman et al. developed an EDRR program for three ports within the Great Lakes: Duluth, Sault Ste. Marie, and Thunder Bay. The goal was to design an adaptive management plan that would efficiently detect aquatic invasive species (AIS) and be able to keep up with the effects of ecological change. Fyke nets, electrofishing, and bottom trawling were the main approaches for gathering data on the aquatic species present at each port. After the procedure was optimized, over 95% of the fish assemblage was found from each of the three ports.

In response to growing concerns of the Asian Carp infiltrating the Great Lakes water systems, the Chicago Area Water System constructed an electric barrier leading into Lake Michigan. The effectiveness of both electric and bubble barriers have been tested on samples of caught Eurasian Ruffe, an invasive fish to the Great Lakes. Electric barriers were found to have fewer passages of fish than did the bubble barrier, even though the electric barriers are more costly to implement and manage.

Chemical pesticides have been used consistently to regulate the populations of invasive species. One in particular is lampricide which contains TFM and traces of niclosamide and was first used in 1958 in Lake Superior to treat sea lamprey populations. Dunlop et al. studied the possibility of sea lamprey becoming resistant to the lampricide by measuring the population size and the LC50 amounts used each year. It was concluded that the LC50 amounts of TFM in lampricide did not change over the years which indicates that there is not a detectable level of resistance for the sea lamprey.

Economic Effects of Invasive Species in Great Lakes

The economic output from the Great Lakes fisheries each year is roughly $7 billion. This value only depicts the U.S. fisheries, not Canadian, and does not include commercial fisheries. There is often a conflict of interest between managing the economic aspect of the fisheries and focusing on the health of the ecosystem. Conflicting viewpoints spread across borders, especially in the case of the alewife population spike resulting from the depletion of lake trout. Canadian officials placed “splake” in Lake Huron, a hybrid of lake trout, in order to replenish the trout fishery market even though Michigan officials deemed the project to be unnecessary. Another example of economic and ecological interests conflicting came in Lake Huron in the early 2000’s. In a time where the alewife population was at one point problematic, it then dramatically plummeted and the annual catch for Chinook salmon dropped from over 100,000 to 3,000 from 2003 to 2010.

References

Bibliography

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3. Invasive species in the Great Lakes. United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2020
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