Little Shrimp, Big Problems

When a shrimp is named the bloody red mysid, you know it isn’t destined to be a cocktail appetizer.

In fact, the bloody red mysid, or Hemimysis anomala, is the latest foreign intruder to invade the Great Lakes, and it could turn out to be one of the deadliest. The shrimp, which hails from the Caspian and Black Seas in Eurasia, is thought to have arrived in Lake Ontario the same way as other invaders: in the ballast of cargo ships. Zebra mussels, quagga mussels and gobies (just three of 185 other foreign species that threaten the Great Lakes ecosystems), hail from the same region.

The shrimp eat phytoplankton and zooplankton, which are the foundation of the entire food chain in the lake. Young fish and smaller species of fish usually eat zooplankton; if the shrimp wipe out the plankton, the situation could become dire.

“Hemimysis is an opportunistic predator,” Chuck O’Neill of the New York State Invasive Species Task Force told the Associated Press in January. “They will eat whatever is available, which means they will be infringing on the food sources for other species.”

Lake Ontario offers an ideal habitat for the shrimp, which prefer warm, shallow waters with rocky bottoms and like to swim near the shore and piers.

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Center for Research on Aquatic Invasive Species in Ann Arbor, Michigan, are looking for public help to track the shrimp, which often appear as a large red swarm in the water (they aren’t dangerous to humans). For more info on how to report a sighting, visit www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/Programs/ncrais/hemimysis/finding_hemi.html.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 21st, 2007 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Under-reported. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.