Beware Of Round Gobies: Where Have All The Bugs Gone?
Ann Arbor, MI — Round gobies have made the shallow floor of Green Bay, Lake Michigan, their new home.
Round gobies are not from America; they were brought here by mistake in water that ships carry around the world. When these ships got to America, they left behind the water and round gobies. Not knowing how these fish would react or adapt to their new surroundings was a cause of concern. Little did we know, they would change the ecosystem of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Researchers have found that round gobies eat everything in their path. In 2003, researchers found that there was little food for round gobies where round gobies existed; however, in areas where round gobies were absent, there was a lot of food. In 2006, researchers found that round gobies had moved into areas where they hadn't been in 2003. These areas, having a lot of food in 2003, had very little food because the round gobies had eaten a lot of it.
"This is not just a problem in Green Bay, it is happening in all of the Great Lakes," says Amanda Lederer, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. "The decrease in food may cause other fish populations to decline, and thus affect the fishing economy of the Great Lakes."
Original Publication Information
Results of this study, "Impacts of the Introduced Round Goby (Apollonia melanostoma) on Dreissenids (Dreissena polymorpha and Dreissena bugensis) and on Macroinvertebrate Community between 2003 and 2006 in the Littoral Zone of Green Bay, Lake Michigan," are reported by Amanda M. Lederer, John Janssen, Tara Reed and Amy Wolf in the latest issue (Volume 34, No. 4, pp. 690-697) of the Journal of Great Lakes Research, published by the International Association for Great Lakes Research, 2008.
Contacts
For more information about the study, contact Amanda Lederer, Biology Department, University of Wisconsin-Platteville, Platteville, WI 53818; , (608) 342-6119.
For information about the Journal of Great Lakes Research, contact Marlene Evans, Editor, National Water Research Institute, 11 Innovation Boulevard, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 3H5, Canada; editor@iaglr.org; (608) 692-1076.
Links
Since 1967, IAGLR has served as the focal point for compiling and disseminating multidisciplinary knowledge on North America's Laurentian Great Lakes and other large lakes of the world and their watersheds. In part, IAGLR communicates this knowledge through publication of the Journal of Great Lakes Research, available to members in print and electronic form. A searchable archive of the journal is available online and includes the abstracts of articles from the journal's inception in 1975 through the most recent issue. In addition, complete articles are available to members who have signed up for an electronic subscription.