Invasion
Invasion Description
1st Record: near Snell Locks in Massena/NY/St. Lawrence River (1989, USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Program 2012)
Geographic Extent
near Snell Locks in Massena/NY/St. Lawrence River (1989, USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Program 2012); Cornwall/Ontario/St. Lawrence River (1989, USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Program 2012); southwest of the Island of Montreal/Quebec/Soulanges Canal, a section of the St. Lawrence River (1992, USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Program 2012); VT-NY/Lake Champlain (1993, Marsden et al. 2009); Johnson Harbour-Tracy/Ontario-Quebec/St. Lawrence River (2009-2010, Adebayo et al. 2012)
Vectors
| Level | Vector |
|---|---|
| Alternate | Ballast Water |
| Alternate | Natural Dispersal |
| Alternate | Hull Fouling |
Regional Impacts
| Ecological Impact | Predation | |
| In Robinson Bay, off the St. Lawrence River, near Massena NY, in mesh enclosures containing Dreissena polymorpha, the abundance of the rotifer Polyarthra sp. declined drastically, indicating predation on this and other microzooplankton. Enclosures with the native mussel Elliptio complanata showed no change in rotifer abundance. Chlorophyll levels in the treatments did not differ, indicating that the effect was due to predation (Thorp and Casper 2002). | ||
| Ecological Impact | Trophic Cascade | |
| In Robinson Bay, of the St. Lawrence River, near Massena NY, in mesh enclosures containing Dreissena polymorpha, abundances of the copepods Eurytemora carolleeae (reported as E. affinis) increased dramatically, presumably due to reduction of competition from rotifers (Thorp and Casper 2002). | ||
| Ecological Impact | Habitat Change | |
| In Lake Champlain VT-NY, Zebra Mussels have extensively colonized soft sediment. Colonized sediment supported communities with a greater abundance and diversity of benthic invertebrates than adjacent sediments, lacking mussels. Experiments in which mussels were added to uncolonized sediment, or removed from colonized sediment also showed that mussels promoted increased abundance and diversity of macrobenthos (Beekey et al. 2004a). Zebra Mussels also adversely affected the foraging success of 3 benthic fishes and a crayfish, by providing shelter to prey organisms. However, the shelter effect may be offset by the increase in the density of prey (Beekey et al. 2004b). In the St. Lawrence River, near Montreal, both the introduced amphipod Echinogammarus ischnus and the native Gammarus fasciatus used Zebra Mussel colonies as shelter, about equally (Palmer and Ricciardi 2005). | ||
| Ecological Impact | Competition | |
| Fouling by Zebra Mussels is reported to have caused a >90% decline in native unionid mussels in the St. Lawrence River near Montreal (Ricciardi et al. 1998). | ||