Talk:Zebra mussel

Untitled
According to http://www.serc.si.edu/watershed/may2001/invasivespecies.htm, zebra mussel was transported to North America via ballast water from a ship.

Almost certainly the case; I edited the page for grammar and some factual content issues. I left in the grumbling paragraph at the bottom, although it probably belongs here rather than in the page. I may work on it another time. The article certainly has an American slant because that is where a fair portion of the recent work has been done. Good recent work done in Ireland also.`

Merge with quagga mussel?
The following note was put at the bottom of the article some months ago by an unknown user:
 * The entries on the Quagga mussel and the Zebra mussel should probably be merged into one entry concerning Dreissina species. Most of the information presented is North American in perspective perhaps because many Europeans have lived with these species for generations and are accustomed to the problems that these species cause.
 * One significant difference between the two species is that Quagga mussels can occur at greater depths than zebra mussels.

The above note was still there; I removed it.Dmccabe 03:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm anything but an expert on mussels, or anything biology, really. I just happened upon this article and was able to do some cleaning. I'm fine with merging the zebras and quaggas, but I can't do that. Can someone look into this? Any need for an "official" merger tag? ··· rWd · Talk ··· 19:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No need; they two separate species; morphological and genetically distinct. They have very similar ecological effects, but that would be like merging African elephants and Asian elephants (DMC); just read the elephant page this week and it is an example of why this and the quagga page should be merged, so obviously I have changed my mind; see my note on the quagga page (DMC March 18 2006).

I banged in a paragraph covering impacts on native mussels. This is the smoking gun and has been repeated now on both sides of the Atlantic. Perhaps others can add more specifics (time needed). Cheers, (DMC Jan 29 2006)

deletion
I took out this: "Other examples are the round goby, alewife, and sea lamprey".;  As discussed on the invasive species page, one person's invasive is another's native. Without context the listed species are not invasive, and if they belong anywhere it is on the invasive species page. What do folks think?Dmccabe 01:24, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

The round goby, alewife and sea lamprey are listed as invasive species by the Ministry of Natural Resources (Ontario). In fact, the sea lamprey was recently in the news because Ontario sent over a bunch of frozen ones to England for a lamprey pie for the Queen--where it's said again that the species is invasive. I can't provide links right now b/c I'm not able to really surf the net but these three species are def. considered invasive.--Rhenn — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.163.12 (talk) 18:36, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

predators
I tweaked the wording on the inevitability of spread: downstream spread is passive in the planktonic stages; spread to unlinked waterways is most likely by trailered pleasure boats. Finally, there are several natural North American predators (freshwater drum, yellow perch, white perch, sturgeon, and some diving duck species). However, not one of them or any combination has been shown to make a dent.Dmccabe 01:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

elimination from a quarry?
I thought that they had also been removed from Lake George NY (small populations restricted to spring-fed spots on a single shoreline stretch); I have not kept up with that story; has anyone else? Regardless, it is difficult to back up a definitive 'this is the only case' type statement.Dmccabe 01:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Ring Shapes
What are those O-shaped rings around the opening of the mussel? - MSTCrow 11:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

iirc, Labial palps

A few revertions
I have reverted a few vandalist edits that had crept up, and added a link to the Spanish wikipedia page. Additionally, I have also changed the date for the Netherlands first sightings from http://www.ecologistasenaccion.org/IMG/pdf/informe_mejillon_cebra_2006.pdf (Spanish). The linked resource is from Ecologistas en Acción, a well-known and respected Spanish ecologist group. Feel free to revert to the previous year (1850) if it is correct. 85.136.21.192 01:02, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

There is a bright side.
Mussel shells are made of calcium carbonate and that is the single most important carbon sink the enviroment has. The fact that these organisms can live in polluted waters and help pull excess carbon out of circulation is a bonus.

```Don Granberry

Shells
As far as I know, Zebra Mussels have very sharp shells. I've cut my hands numerous times coming of out Lake Ontario...should that be mentioned in the article somehow?  Andrew 647  03:43, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Sure. Find a reference, put in a blurb under "Effects" probably about the effects of the sharpness, and "ref" frame the reference at the end of your blurb. —BozoTheScary 19:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Information from history in Zebra Musells (sic)
There was information and references in a misspelled version of the article, but I couldn't determine the correctness of the information. Most of it is redundant with the current information in the article so I'm putting it here. ColourBurst 23:06, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Zebra Musells (Driessena polymorpha) were first discovered in Lake St. Clair in 1988, and were introduced when a transatlantic ship from Europe emptied its ballast tanks in port (Herbert et al. 1989; Griffiths et al. 1991). Although not discovered until 1988, it is thought to have arrived in 1986 (Gist et al. 1997). In the seventeen years since, the non-native species has invaded the entire Upper Mississippi River System, a large number of it's tributaries, and many inland lakes, and has nearly eliminated most native mussel species in the Great Lakes (Allen et al. 1999; Chakraborti et al. 2002; U.S Fish and Wildlife Service 2003). It has been suggested that D. polymorpha has the potential to invade most of the waterways in the United States as well as southern Canada (Johnson et al., 1996). D. polymorpha competes aggressively for food with native species, and due to their rapid rate of reproduction and domination of the waterbody substrate, reproduction becomes difficult for native species.

Air Conditioning??
..But how on earth are they getting into air conditioners, of all places? I've read they are a problem in industrial air conditioners a few places but can't figure out how they'd get there in the first place, other than by disgruntled employees. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zaphraud (talk • contribs) 02:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Good question. I can imagine many reasons not to use raw lake water in an AC system, but it is hard to see any other way mussels could get in there.Dmccabe (talk) 18:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC) Have a look at this: [] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmccabe (talk • contribs) 18:04, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

sentence error. also it has no reference
"This proves beneficial for fish most of the time, helping the fish live in better conditions."

this sentnece is 1) incorrect, zebra muscles hurt more food chains than they help and 2) it has no reference and should therefore be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.43.212.236 (talk) 00:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

propose subsection: "Invasive Species"
I propose a new subsection called invasive species.

watershedcouncil.org
I think we should include some of the information on zebra muscles from this website. http://www.watershedcouncil.org/AquaticInvasiveSpecies.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.43.212.236 (talk) 00:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

the heading's all messed up
Is it just my machine, or does the index with all the links look weird to anyone else?

"Roknighani"
"The zebra mussel was found and described first in the Roknighani part of Russia..."

What does "Roknighani" mean? Google shows no results other than this article. &mdash; Itai (talk) 11:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Not a sentence
This ostensible "sentence" near the start of the article is not a sentence, it makes very little sense:

Although zebra mussels superficially resemble marine mussels in the family Mytilidae, and like them, are attached to solid substrates with a byssus.

Expansion of economic impacts
While the cost of cleaning power plants and WTPs is stated, the economic cost of the mussels in terms of controlling their spread and their impacts on the Great Lakes and other important fisheries could be mentioned. Bkmertz (talk) 02:14, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It should be mentioned that the claim of $500 million/year in economic damage is poorly supported by references and seems to be severely exaggerated. This study estimates the cost of $267 million, cumulative (not annually!) from 1989 to 2004. Itinerant1 (talk) 00:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Streams
The opening paragraph currently states that the mussels originate in streams in Europe. It's not true; in fact zebra mussels are most commonly found in lakes and standing water. The citation source states that zebra mussels came from the "Dnieper River drainage of Ukraine"....the word "stream" never appears in that article. Coming from from a certain river drainage simply means that they are from that watershed....For example all of the lake organisms in the US Great Lakes are in the St. Lawrence River drainage....it does not mean they live in the river. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.3.2.240 (talk) 03:57, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Macrophyte "bacteria" - no such animal
One of the major reasons this article describes zebra mussels as problematic is that they allow for the growth of what the article had called "macrophyte bacteria", and a reference was provided to a publication by the Army Corps of Engineers. The link is not accessible (403 error, no credentials) so I could not check the reference. Then the article stated that these "bacteria, when dying, wash up in shorelines, fouling them." I did some research on macrophytes, and it turns out that all of them are not only not bacteria, they aren't even algae-- macrophytes are aquatic plants ("macro"- big), like duckweed and cattails. These, however, actually can wash up on shorelines when they die. So I have changed the article in this sense, reflecting the fact that macrophytes are plants (you won't find "macrophytic bacteria" or "macrophyte bacteria" on any legitimate google searches either). But it would have been nice to have seen the reference instead of having it locked behind an authorization wall of some kind. In trying to understand what's bad about zebra mussels, it makes a big difference whether it is dying bacteria or dying water lilies that are fouling up beaches. KDS 4444 Talk  20:11, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Unclear
"This improved water clarity allows sunlight to penetrate deeper, enabling growth of submerged macrophytes. These plants, when decaying, wash up on shorelines, fouling beaches and causing water quality problems. Lake floor food supplies are enriched by zebra mussels as they filter pollution out of the water." Huh? It's like saying, "this improved water quality reduces water quality by improving water quality." At best, there's a paradox that needs to be specifically addressed. At worst, this is directly contradictory stuff. Fluous (talk) 08:00, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Just somethings to consider
-I believe it would be valuable to include differing aspects of Zebra mussels affecting fish populations in Mount St. Claire. In this Michigan study, https://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/2082rr_363251_7.pdf, they have found that Walleye found in Michigan lakes has decreased. The viewpoint of the Zebra mussels being the sole savior of the yellow perch is overplayed, while many other species of fish are declining in population due to the process. A possible change would be to emphasize the effect that the concentrated nutrients have on bottom feeders, then go on and say that other fishes like Walleye are being effected negatively.

-Also, it should be noted in what time frame the 5 fold increase was. In your cited source (#10) it was indicated in 1990-1996 that increase took place. As well as there is no source that I have come across that backs up that claim.

-You may want to also include this article http://www.lakeproinc.com/zebra-mussels-first-appeared-lake-st-clair/. Due to the high volumes of water that these mussels filter, they have a higher concentration of toxins. When these Zebra mussels are eaten, this would "significantly affect contaminant cycling is of great concern in the Great Lakes, where health advisories already exist for consumption of some species of fish."

-A small change would be to the sentence "They build colonies on Native American unionid clams, reducing their ability to move, feed, and breed, eventually leading to their deaths." The term "Native American unionid clams" may be misconstrued. I understood it as Unionid clams are native species of America, but some clarifying may help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BisforBiology (talk • contribs) 07:28, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Zebra mussel
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Zebra mussel's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "iucn": From Coral reef fish:  From Black Sea:  From Bigmouth buffalo:  From Aquatic mammal:  From Pollan (fish): Freyhof, J. & Kottelat, M. (2008) Coregonus pollan IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.1. Downloaded 25 April 2010. 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 01:41, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Reverted. Invasive Spices (talk) 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Map of native habit?
Has anyone seen a map of their native habitat? Across pretty much every article the range is said to be Russia/Ukraine-ish but there doesn't seem to be an actual map or list of lakes that they naturally inhabit. Everyone just seems to talk about them as an invasive species ignoring their native habitat. MaximumMaxxx (talk) 23:30, 23 April 2023 (UTC)