Whatever happened to . . . zebra mussels in Lake Erie

Spiel · April 23, 2009

Whatever happened to . . . zebra mussels in Lake Erie

Monday, April 20, 2009

The destructive zebra mussels that had invaded Lake Erie and caused great concern for lake creatures are gone for now. The mollusks' larger cousin, the Quagga, pushed the zebra out.

Whatever happened to the zebra mussels, the foreign invader blamed, in part, for the "dead zone" in Lake Erie?

They're gone.

If you spot a zebra mussel in Lake Erie this year, it's a case of mistaken identity.

The destructive mollusk's larger, look-alike cousin, the Quagga, has finally pushed the zebra out, said Fred Snyder of Ohio State University's Sea Grant program.

The zebra and the Quagga have been battling for turf in Lake Erie since the mid-1990s. Quagga won because they can live in deeper, colder water, Snyder said.

The zebra mussel, named for its distinctive brown stripes, is a native of Europe. It first showed up in American waters in the mid-1990s and has since been blamed for everything from clogging water intake pipes of power plants to the destruction of freshwater unionid clams in the western basin of Lake Erie.

The Quagga hails from Russia and showed up in Lake Erie in the mid-1990s. Although it is a bit bigger than the zebra, its impact on the lake is the same.

Quagga or zebra, it really doesn't matter, Snyder said.

Both mussels eat minuscule animals and algae that once supplied food for tiny fish and other creatures. And each spews phosphate into the lake, causing larger-than-normal algae blooms. Dead zones form when algae die and suck most of the oxygen out of the water.

"Lake Erie has already adapted and we're never going to get rid of the mussels," Snyder said.