Migrating Birds and the Great Lakes
The mounting loss of migrating birds has researchers and ecologists blaming the deaths on invasive populations of zebra mussels and round gobies spreading over the Great Lakes, effectively creating a new food chain.
Zebra mussels and quagga mussels, filter naturally occurring botulism and other toxins from the water. Gobies eat the mussels, and birds, in turn, eat the gobies. This new food chain is concentrating botulism and other bottom toxins and passing them up to predators.
January 28, 2008 6:24 AM | Category: Invasive Species