Great Lakes fish feed on invading shrimp

“Forecasting how an invader will affect the growth and production of a specific native fish species is very relevant to conservation groups and government agencies hoping to conserve those fish,” says Biology graduate student Mike Yuille.

Mr. Yuille is the lead author of a study that suggests for the first time that several native fish species have incorporated the bloody red shrimp into their diet over a multi-seasonal period.

In addition to using traditional stomach content analyses, researchers measured the carbon and nitrogen signatures of muscle tissues of three potential Hemimysis predators (round goby, yellow perch, and alewife) to get a long-term picture of eating habits.

All three predators exhibited increased nitrogen or carbon signatures, suggesting they had been feeding on prey with signatures very similar to Hemimysis. The team found these signatures in sites with dense populations of bloody red shrimp.

Like zebra mussels, Hemimysis anomala is native to the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. It probably arrived in the Great Lakes through the ballast water of transoceanic ship. In 2006 it was discovered in Lake Michigan and has now been found in all of the Great Lakes except Lake Superior.

Mr. Yuille co-authored the research with Queen’s associate professor Shelley Arnott, Linda Campbell, and Timothy Johnson at the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources’ Glenora Fisheries Station in Picton.

These findings will be published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research.

Media Contact

Anne Craig EurekAlert!

More Information:

http://www.queensu.ca

All latest news from the category: Ecology, The Environment and Conservation

This complex theme deals primarily with interactions between organisms and the environmental factors that impact them, but to a greater extent between individual inanimate environmental factors.

innovations-report offers informative reports and articles on topics such as climate protection, landscape conservation, ecological systems, wildlife and nature parks and ecosystem efficiency and balance.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors