freshwater Archives - EcoEvo@TCD

07/05/202020/05/2020

Disease dynamics and the impact of incompetent invaders

Invasive freshwater fish (Leuciscus leuciscus) acts as a sink for a parasite of native brown trout Salmo trutta (2020) Tierney et al. Biological Invasions. Read it here.

Adapted from blog published at Ecology for the Masses

Alien invasions and parasite infection

From house cats to cane toads, invasive species are one of the biggest threats to native plants and wildlife, second only to habitat destruction. An invasive species is a living organism that is a) introduced by humans from its native range to an area it doesn’t naturally occur, b) spreads and forms new populations and c) causes some kind of damage to the native ecosystem, economy or human health. Current lockdown conditions notwithstanding, introductions of invasive species have become increasingly common in our globalised world with easier travel and trade between countries. The spread of invasive species creates new ecological interactions between native and invasive species that can impact how our native ecosystems function, including disease dynamics. If the development and transmission of native parasites is different in invasive hosts compared to their usual native hosts, the parasite dynamics of the whole system can be altered.

24/04/202007/05/2020

A Field Season in New Zealand: One Mesocosm Experiment to Rule them All

Being on lockdown has me dreaming of our recent field season in New Zealand. The home of “Middle Earth” is a paradise for outdoor enthusiasts and going through the photographs from my own unexpected(/meticulously planned) journey is making my imagination run wild. Unique wildlife, towering mountains, endless waves, campsites with a view…

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Description automatically generated — Hard at work in New Zealand

18/09/201924/09/2019

Invasive clams like it hot: heated water from power plants gives populations a boost

Corbicula fluminea dominating the River Shannon bottom near the Lough Ree Power Station.

This post by Maureen and Marcin is based on their paper in the November 2019 issue of Science of The Total Environment, “Thermal effluents from power plants boost performance of the invasive clam Corbicula fluminea in Ireland’s largest river”. (Penk & Williams, 2019)

The River Shannon is Ireland’s largest river, with a storied biological and cultural history. The River drains 20% of the country, running through the centre of the midlands while providing a source of power and water. The machinery used to generate power in most power plants, whether they’re nuclear, peat-fueled, or coal-powered plants, often heats up to extreme temperatures when the plants are running. To try to keep the machinery cool, many power plants today take water from local sources, use it to cool the generators, and then put it back out into the original source. Two of Ireland’s largest power plants, the Lough Ree Power Station and the West Offaly Power Station, use water from the River Shannon in this way, putting the water back into the river up to 10°C hotter than the River water. The warm water can change the structure of the aquatic community near the output, and our study shows that this increase in temperature gives a significant boost to the invasive Asian clam, Corbicula fluminea.