Greenwire : Experts warn that if not stopped, quagga mussels could poison Lake Mead near Las Vegas. “We want to watch these levels in fish and birds to see how things change,” said Shawn Gerstenberger, executive associate dean at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “What we’ve seen in the Great Lakes shows the contaminants (levels) here will likely go up.” UNLV researchers are testing different kinds of fish in the lake for various toxins in an attempt to determine the extent of the quaggas’ effects. Quaggas absorb toxins and heavy metals, such as mercury or selenium , from lake water in a process called bioaccumulation. But they later expel those toxins in the form of highly concentrated pellets that sink to the lake floor and can be eaten by bottom feeders, eventually working their way up the food chain. As the population of quagga mussels grows over the the next two years, they will begin to have a bigger impact on water quality in the lake, according to biologist David Wong, a researcher at UNLV’s School of Community Health. “In terms of potential ecological impact and economic loss, the quaggas are the worst threat facing Las Vegas,” Wong said (Stephanie Tavares, Las Vegas Sun , Nov. 9). – JK Share This

Read more here:
Quagga mussels imperil Lake Mead