Potential effects of invasive Dreissenid mussels on a pelagic freshwater ecosystem: using an ecosystem model to simulate mussel invasion in a sockeye lake

Dreissenid (zebra and quagga) mussels are spreading across North America and having an impact on freshwater ecosystems, through bottom-up impacts. Lakes in British Columbia are known to be at risk for mussel invasion due to favourable water chemistry and significant cross-border boat movements. This project uses Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) to model a hypothetical mussel invasion into Shuswap Lake: one of the most popular lakes for recreation and one of the most productive sockeye lakes in the province. A model of the ecosystem was fit to available data and then projected forward to examine the effects from three different scenarios: no invasion, a base mussel invasion scenario resulting in a carrying capacity of 5 g∙m and 15 g∙m of zebra and quagga mussels, respectively, and a high density invasion scenario resulting in a combined carrying capacity of 40 g∙m of Dreissenid mussels. The greatest ecosystem impacts resulted in declines in large piscivorous rainbow trout and lake trout, followed by non-anadromous kokanee salmon, with little effect observed on anadromous sockeye salmon. Two mechanisms limit the predicted impact of mussels in the study system: (1) paucity of shallow water habitat, limiting the scope for invasion; and (2) movements by fish in and out of the system. This second mechanism includes some resident species that rear for up to three years upstream of the lake, as well as anadromous species, which spend most of their life in the marine environment. While most of the effects are observed on recreationally important species, there is also the possibility of mussels spreading from this system into others within the same watershed, reiterating the importance of preventing the invasion and spread of Dreissenid mussels.