An analysis of more than a century's worth of ecosystem data has revealed how the introduction of a single species of shrimp to a US lake led to a cascade of changes in the food web.
Bonnie Ellis at the University of Montana's Flathead Lake Biological Station in Polson and her colleagues examined published data from Flathead Lake (pictured) dating back to the end of the nineteenth century. They found that the opossum shrimp (Mysis diluviana), which was introduced into the lake in the mid-1980s, became a food source for the previously introduced but theretofore unobtrusive lake trout, which now dominates the lake.
The lake trout went on to eat all of the kokanee salmon, depriving eagles of their annual spawning kokanee feast. In addition, the shrimp consume large zooplankton, so small zooplankton now dominate. Because the latter do not consume as much algae, algal levels have increased, leading to a 21% rise in photosynthesis.
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Ecology: The effects of opossum shrimp. Nature 469, 134 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/469134c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/469134c
