Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

SS10 Human Activities and Their Effects on Aquatic Ecosystems (Environmental Connections; Science and Society Connections)

Date: Monday, February 12, 2001, Time: 2:45:00 PM

Location: La Cienega

Duffy, M, A, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA, duffymeg@pilot.msu.edu

Perry, L, J, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA, ljperry@emory.edu

Kearns, C, M, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA, cmk4@cornell.edu

Weider, L, J, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Limnologie, Ploen, Germany, ljweider@ou.edu

Hairston, Jr., N, G, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA, ngh1@cornell.edu

PALEOGENETIC EVIDENCE FOR A PAST INVASION OF ONONDAGA LAKE, NEW YORK, BY EXOTIC DAPHNIA CURVIROSTRIS USING MTDNA FROM DORMANT EGGS

While past invasions of lakes can be difficult to detect, particularly if they have not been successful, careful study of the diapausing egg bank makes such detections possible. Daphnia ephippia were found in the sediments of Onondaga Lake, New York that could neither be hatched nor identified using egg-case morphology. Instead, mtDNA sequences extracted from diapausing eggs were used to identify the unknown Daphnia; this method allowed us to identify the invader as Daphnia curvirostris, a Eurasian species that has only been reported once before from North America, in extreme Northwestern Canada. As with the previously reported finding of another exotic cladoceran, D. exilis, it is likely that chemical industry activities on the lakeshores were the original source of invading D. curvirostris, that pollution allowed this species to become established in the lake, and that the reduction in pollution ultimately led to its disappearance from the water column. It is likely that this species was detected during plankton samples taken during the 1960s, but, as it was not included in North American keys at that time, it was identified as D. pulex.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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