In 1988, a fingernail-sized shellfish creature was discovered in Lake St. Clay in the United States. The United States did not expect that such a small and inconspicuous creature would pose a great threat to them in the future. Today, there is no way to stop this tiny creature from invading their homes.
Pictured: Zebra mussels
People realized that they could never stop zebra mussels from disappearing completely from the river, and the only thing they could do was to control that these tiny shellfish creatures would not spread from one body of water to another. In order to cope with this situation, the Us government has even enacted special legislation to deal with this grim situation.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > terrifying intruder: zebra mussels </h1>
This small shellfish is the zebra mussel: mollusk phylum, bivalve, paleo-heterodontidae. Because of its excessive reproductive rate and the fact that it has already produced disasters in the United States, it is not too much information about its distribution. In general, these mussels are usually only the size of fingernails, and the largest can grow to about five centimeters. Adults attach their feet to everything that can be climbed, but they are harder objects, such as pipes, hulls, and even the shells of other shellfish.
Pictured: Zebra mussels attached to other shellfish shells
Zebra mussels use plankton and detritus in the water as their main food source, while climbing on the bottom of other freighters, in power plant drainage pipes, and other places with medium water flow, so that they can open their shells to absorb more food. Zebra mussels, as they travel by freighter or other means to reach areas free of natural predators, reproduce at a faster rate and reproduce at an even more outrageous rate.
Pictured: A large number of zebra mussels
How outrageous is the reproduction rate of zebra mussels? First of all, we should know that the life cycle of zebra mussels is only four to five years. Female zebra mussels begin to breed within 6 to 7 weeks of settlement. Adult female zebra mussels lay between 30,000 and 40,000 eggs per time, producing more than 1 million eggs per year. Outrageous or outrageous? A million eggs a year, no predators. These two points alone are enough to establish the status of zebra mussel terrorist invaders.
Pictured: The breeding cycle of mussels
In the European homeland of zebra mussels, it has its most feared natural enemies. It contains 36 species of birds and more than 38 species of fish with mussels as a food source. Zebra Mussel secretly decided to leave its homeland and travel to its ideal paradise, North America, where the vast majority of its natural enemies are not. So the little zebra mussel rested here, and by the time it came to prominence, the natural enemies had limited control over the number of zebra mussels.
Pictured: Mussels
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the hazards of small mussels </h1>
Since zebra mussels were first discovered in 1988, the same year, the horrific intruders have completed mass breeding at the Detroit Edison Power Plant. They are spread throughout the inlet of the power plant and have a density of up to 200 per square meter. In December of the same year, the power plant stopped entering the water for two days, and the nearby schools and factories stopped supplying water. To restart, the local government spent $250,000 to restore factory production. The power plant spent $6 million redesigning the new water intake system to prevent the impact of zebra mussels on the plant.
Pictured: Zebra mussels clinging to a pipe
Zebra mussels devour large amounts of phytoplankton and consume oxygen in the water, making it difficult for other shellfish and fish to grow. Other shellfish to which they are attached also suffocate due to the inability to open their shells. In this way, as zebra mussels reproduce without boundaries, 70% of the 300 native shellfish owned in the United States are extinct, endangered, and declining.
Pictured: Distribution of zebra mussels in North America
Similarly, this terrifying invader is also the source of botulinum toxin in poultry, which paralyzes the reproductive system due to the consumption of zebra mussels. It is precisely because of this that since the 1990s, tens of thousands of birds have died in the Great Lakes region of the United States.
Pictured: A water bird eating mussels
But in fact, the changes that zebra mussels have made to the local area are not all bad. Zebra mussels are a filter feeding that feeds on plankton and detritus in the water as its main food source before falling to the bottom with feces. Therefore, it can achieve the effect of filtering water quality and making the water quality clearer.
Pictured: Zebra mussels on the shells of other shellfish in the water
And then that's the end of the good thing. Because these feces can enrich the lake bottom, it leads to a large number of algae in the water, countless plants grow wildly, and causes zebra mussels to grow wildly, becoming a vicious circle.
Pictured: Mussels on a rock
It was for these reasons in the United States in 2007 that the Iggy nuclear power plant in New York State was forced to shut down three times in two months because the cooling water cycle was interrupted. As a result, the power plant had to issue orders to clean up the shutdown, and in this way, the cost of each shutdown cleanup was as high as $2 million.
Pictured: Eutrophication of water quality
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > happy home of a terrorist intruder </h1>
Biologists have studied the genes of zebra mussels and come to the conclusion that the harmful gadget comes from the distant Caspian and Black Seas. But the next question is what makes everyone scratch their heads: How did this little mussel withstand the icy currents and the storms of the Atlantic Ocean to reach the United States?
According to studies, the most likely route for zebra mussel invasion is ballast water discharged by ships, container ships have various sinks on the ground floor, and ballast water is loaded into the departure port to balance the hull, but these water bodies contain seedlings of various aquatic organisms, due to the fast sailing speed, after arriving at the destination port, the ballast water is discharged and these organisms are also transmitted to the port. In this way, some of the original isolation in biogeographic distribution is broken. With the opening up of trade, it has become more common for such alien species to invade through the discharge of ballast water from cargo ships. In this way, the little mussel rode the east wind and came to its ideal paradise.
Pictured: Mussels attached to the bottom of a boat
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > staunchly defensive humans and their seemingly useless resistance </h1>
Finally, it's time for everyone to be interested. Every time there is a mention of a biological invasion, "Let me come!" This sentence will be all over the comment area. It is worthy of my great heavenly dynasty, and even the method of controlling biological invasion is so fresh and unworldly. Of course, this side suggests that everyone still give up this unrealistic illusion. The reason is this: it was said that mussels are a filter-feeding animal, so they contain a lot of heavy metals and industrial pollution elements, so zebra mussels in the Great Lakes are actually not recommended for consumption.
Pictured: Mussels on the beach
The vulnerable human camp has been given several proven methods in the process of governing the zebra mussel camp. Among them, chlorine water killing is the most effective one, and there is also a "snail extinguishing" agent that is also very convenient to use. If the chemical method is not very good, the human camp can also use electric shock, carbon dioxide, ultraviolet light, and heating to kill zebra mussels. For those zebra mussels in the pipeline, the human camp chose the method of dehydration to dry them up to death. Of course, if the human camp has so many ways, why haven't these zebra mussels been completely disposed of? It's simple, because it's expensive, and it's also troublesome.
After saying so much, some people will still float out a sentence: "Why don't you eat minced meat?" "Why not bring in natural enemies of its origin to control zebra mussels?" "Here's why, and you don't have to rush me to explain it to you: because zebra mussels have major predators in their homeland, fish and poultry, but for them native American food seems to be more appetizing." Therefore, in order to avoid causing another biological invasion, this method, which is not a solution, has been shelved for the time being.
By this point, the poor human camp seemed helpless by now. But did zebra mussels really win that way?