Science Takes On a Silent Invader

By ROBERT H. BOYLE

The New York Times

Since they arrived in the Great Lakes in the 1980s, two species of mussels the size of pistachios have spread to hundreds of lakes and rivers in 34 states and have done vast economic and ecological damage.

These silent invaders, the quagga and zebra mussels, have disrupted ecosystems by devouring phytoplankton, the foundation of the aquatic food web, and have clogged the water intakes and pipes of cities and towns, power plants, factories and even irrigated golf courses.

Now the mussels may have met their match: Daniel P. Molloy, an emeritus biologist at the New York State Museum in Albany and a self-described “Bronx boy who became fascinated by things living in water.”...

Leading a team at the museum’s Cambridge Field Research Laboratory in upstate New York, he discovered a bacterium, Pseudomonas fluorescens strain CL145A, that kills the mussels but appears to have little or no effect on other organisms. 

As a result, New York State has awarded a license to Marrone Bio Innovations, a company in Davis, Calif., to develop a commercial formulation of the bacterium. The product, Zequanox, has been undergoing tests for several years, with promising results. (Dr. Molloy has no financial ties to the company.)

Zequanox killed more than 90 percent of the mussels in a test using tanks of water from Lake Carlos in Minnesota, said James A. Luoma, a research biologist with the United States Geological Survey in La Crosse, Wis. A control group of freshwater mussels, unionids from the Black River in Wisconsin, were unharmed. ...

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Photo by L. Mann/APO Sleepy Hollow Lake.

New York State DEC wants mute swans killed or captured by 2025 

By Cyndi Murray
Riverhead News Review

Citing “aggressive behavior towards people” and “destruction of submerged aquatic vegetation,” the state Department of Environment Conservation has released a new plan to kill or capture all wild mute swans by 2025.

The DEC’s Management Plan for Mute Swans in New York State aims to reduce the population of mute swans, which has grown considerably in recent years on Long Island. ...

The DEC is accepting comments on the mute swan plan through Feb. 21. Mail your thoughts to NYSDEC Bureau of Wildlife, Swan Management Plan, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233-4754

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