Too much mussel: Mollusk explosion could do great harm to Lake Michigan sport-fishing industry

An estimated 330 trillion quagga mussels carpet vast areas of Lake Michigan's underbelly. The foreign mollusks literally are sucking the aquatic life out of the water and depositing it on the lake bottom, according to new scientific data.

"It's unbelievable, the changes that are happening," said Gary Fahnenstiel, a senior ecologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Lake Michigan Field State in Muskegon. "The quagga mussel population has exploded and is taking over the lake bottom."

Nalepa authored a soon-to-be-released study that concluded quagga mussels have seized control of the Lake Michigan ecosystem. He said the mussels have displaced native amphipods that fish eat, trapped vast quantities of critical nutrients on the lake bottom, and displaced nearly all zebra mussels in the lake.

"It's astounding to me that there is almost four times more dreissena mussels (by weight) in the lake than prey fish," said Tom Nalepa, a NOAA research biologist.

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