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Map of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins, showing the artificial canal connection (Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal) running through Illinois (IL) that has connected them since 1900
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The Laurentian Great Lakes and the Mississippi River are two of the largest freshwater ecosystems in North America, and each contains large numbers of non-native species. In 1900 the Great Lakes and Mississippi were permanently connected with the opening of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in the US state of Illinois. More recently, movement of...
Citations
... After being introduced into a new habitat, AIS can outcompete native species, restructure food webs, and transform the abiotic conditions of entire ecosystems (Mills et al. 1994;Gallardo et al. 2015;Havel et al. 2015). Rates of introduction and spread of AIS have steadily increased over the last century and freshwater ecosystems have been impacted more strongly by invaders than other ecosystem types (Havel et al. 2015;Jacobs and Keller 2016). Degradation of the high biodiversity and economic services provided by freshwater systems is often substantial with large impacts for society and economies (Mills et al. 1994;Ricciardi and Rasmussen 1999;Rosaen et al. 2012;Bacher et al 2018). ...
... Degradation of the high biodiversity and economic services provided by freshwater systems is often substantial with large impacts for society and economies (Mills et al. 1994;Ricciardi and Rasmussen 1999;Rosaen et al. 2012;Bacher et al 2018). In the United States, the state of Illinois possesses the only continuous aquatic connection (via the Illinois River and Chicago Area Waterway System) between the Mississippi River Basin and the Laurentian Great Lakes Basin, making the state a pivotal gateway for spread of AIS (Jacobs and Keller 2016). An example of a current AIS issue with heightened concern of passing between the two basins via Illinois is invasive species of carp (aka Asian carp), which has been detected in water bodies increasingly close to the Great Lakes and carries considerable risks to the lakes' ecological health and economic wellbeing (Chapman et al. 2020). ...
... An effort to catalogue and assess historical records of AIS in Illinois was published in 2016 (Jacobs and Keller 2016). That study aggregated available non-native aquatic species sampling data from multiple academic institutions and state agencies between 1873 and 2012. ...
Tracking the introduction and establishment of aquatic invasive species (AIS) is important for monitoring the biological and economic health of freshwater environments. The state of Illinois (USA) is a critical region for understanding the threats of AIS because it possesses the only continuous aquatic habitat connecting the Laurentian Great Lakes and Mississippi River Basins. In this study, we update a previous effort to catalogue and evaluate historical AIS records from Illinois. Our updated database shows that there are now at least 92 nonindigenous aquatic species established in Illinois and a further 51 have been recorded as introduced but not established. This is more species than reported in the earlier database, most likely due to improved access to data and a longer timeframe of analysis. Rates of introduction and establishment have continued to increase in Illinois over the past century, and we identify new groups of organisms that were not in the previous database. Current sampling efforts are not sufficient to detect the number of invaders present and additional non-native species may be present but not yet recorded. Illinois is likely to remain an important hub for the introduction and spread of invasive aquatic species with implications for freshwater ecosystems across the continent.
... This research was conducted in the U.S. state of Illinois, where at least 60 aquatic invasive species have been established, such as Zebra mussels Dreissena polymorpha and Curly-leaf pondweed Potamogeton crispus, with other species such as quagga mussels Dreissena rostriformis bugensis and spiny waterflea Bythotrephes longimanus at risk of establishment and spread (Jacobs and Keller 2017 Barriers to participation in aquatic invasive species prevention among Illinois, USA… populations of filter feeding zebra mussels can cause dramatic effects in the food web and alter water clarity, affecting habitat conditions (Higgens and Vander Zanden 2010). Zebra mussels also attach to surfaces, which in high numbers can affect human access to waterbodies and impede waterflow through pipes (Connelly et al. 2007;Hosler 2011). ...
The spread of invasive species is a globally relevant challenge for environmental management agencies. There have been considerable investments in outreach campaigns that encourage recreationists to minimize the spread of aquatic invasive species as they move between waterbodies. However, widespread behavior change has yet to take hold. Empirical evidence of the barriers that impede pro-environmental behaviors among water-based rec-reationists is thus urgently needed. With theoretical guidance from the Health Belief Model, we sought to understand how risk perceptions, perceived benefits, self-efficacy, and response-efficacy influenced aquatic invasive species prevention behavior, how barriers moderated those relationships, and how socio-demographic characteristics relate to the level of barriers experienced. Among all respondents, self-efficacy and response-efficacy had the strongest positive relationships with behavioral intentions; however, different relationships emerged for subgroups defined by the strength of perceived barriers. For recreationists who experienced low barriers, perceived benefits were the sole predictor of intended behavior, whereas for recreationists experiencing moderate barriers, only self-efficacy was a significant predictor. Recre-ationists who perceived high and very high barriers were influenced by risk perceptions, self-efficacy, and response-efficacy. Strength of perceived barriers was negatively correlated with years of fishing and boating experience. Additionally, a comparison between boating and angling behaviors indicated that boaters need more information about how to complete prevention steps, whereas anglers need more information about why such actions are necessary. Ultimately, outreach campaigns should aim to boost self-efficacy and response-efficacy in order to support diverse audiences faced with barriers that impede engagement in invasive species prevention.
... Compiling baseline information, such as species distributions, is a critical first step to studying the effects of nonindigenous aquatic mollusks on the native aquatic mollusk fauna. Cummings (1991) listed four nonindigenous aquatic mollusk species as occurring in Illinois, and Jacobs and Keller (2017) reported six species established within Illinois inland waters and three others as "discovered but not established" within the state. We have identified 13 nonindigenous aquatic mollusk species with historic or current populations in Illinois. ...
... We also provide basic life-history information about the known nonindigenous aquatic mollusks in Illinois, as well as identifying features of these species. Cummings 1991;Grigorovich et al. 2005;Grigorovich et al. 2008;Sneen et al. 2009;Jacobs and Keller 2017;Tiemann et al. 2017) for additional records not captured through museum holdings. We queried publicly available databases: the USGS' Nonindigenous Aquatic Species program (https://nas.er.usgs. ...
... It has an operculum that is often missing when the snail is dead and the shell is empty. Like other minute gastropods, P. antipodarum can be difficult for nonspecialists to conclusively identify due to its small size and need for magnification, and this species could be misidentified or underrepresented in datasets GASTROPODA: LYMNAEIDAE -Big-eared Radix Radix auricularia (Linnaeus, 1758) ( Figure 5) Big-eared Radix, also called European Ear Snail (Jacobs and Keller 2017), is native to Europe and Asia (Jokinen 1992). It was first recorded in North America from the Hudson River, Albany County, New York, before 1869 (Strayer 1987). ...
Nonindigenous aquatic species (NAS), some of which are referred to as aquatic invasive species (AIS) or non-native aquatic species, are those aquatic organisms that have become established beyond their native ranges. They often inhabit a variety of habitats and physicochemical conditions, reach high densities, and alter ecosystem function. Understanding the distribution of nonindigenous aquatic species is vital to protecting native biodiversity in invaded ecosystems. A search of museum collections, literature accounts, and field surveys conducted in recent years by biologists from the Illinois Natural History Survey, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and other agencies revealed 13 nonindigenous aquatic mollusk species reported to occur in Illinois. Ten species (five bivalves and five gastropods) have viable reproducing populations. One species, the Big-eared Radix Radix auricularia (Linnaeus, 1758), is no longer extant in Illinois, and two species, the European Stream Valvata Valvata piscinalis (Müller, 1774) and European Fingernail Clam Sphaerium corneum (Linnaeus, 1758), have an unknown status. Some species, such as the Basket Clam Corbicula fluminea (Müller, 1774), Zebra Mussel Dreissena polymorpha (Pallas, 1771), and Chinese Mysterysnail Cipangopaludina chinensis (Gray in Griffith and Pidgeon, 1833), are widespread and abundant. However, other species like the Mottled Fingernail Clam Eupera cubensis (Prime, 1865) and New Zealand Mudsnail Potamopyrgus antipodarum (Gray, 1843) are currently restricted to a particular location or drainage. Other nonindigenous aquatic mollusks with the potential for becoming established in Illinois or border waters are also discussed.
... Just in the past 20 years, the Great Lakes-St Lawrence River basin has accumulated over 180 non-native species (Pagnucco et al., 2015). Despite investment to prevent the spread of organisms between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system, taxa including zebra mussels and rusty crayfish (Faxonius rusticus) (Jacobs and Keller, 2017;Mills et al., 1993), have already crossed between the basins, with many more likely to follow (Rasmussen et al., 2011). ...
The Mississippi River maintains commercial and societal networks of the USA along its >3700 km length. It has accumulated a fluvial sedimentary succession over 80 million years. Through the last 11,700 years of the Holocene Epoch, the wild river shaped the landscape, models of which have become classic in geological studies of ancient river strata. Studies of the river were led by the need to develop infrastructure and to search for hydrocarbons, through which, these models have become quite sophisticated. However, whilst the models demonstrate how the wild river behaves, a monumental shift in fundamental controls on the entire fluvial system, broadly coinciding with the proposed mid-20th century onset of the Anthropocene Epoch, has generated new geological patterns that are becoming globally ubiquitous, and which the Mississippi River typifies. As such, whilst classic Holocene river models may be compared to human-modified systems such as the Lower Mississippi River (and others worldwide), locally the models may now only directly apply to its fossilized components preserved in the sub-surface. Such river models need adapting to better understand the present dynamics, and future evolution of these landscapes.
... Second, these species either are already of invasion concern in the region or are taxonomically and morphologically similar to species of concern. P. clarkii is an invasion concern as a crayfish with recently detected established populations in inland and Great Lakes-adjacent waters in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin (Ellison, 2015;Bunk and Van Egeren, 2016;Jacobs and Keller, 2017;Donato et al., 2018;Smith et al., 2018;Egly et al., 2019;Oficialdegui et al., 2019). Native to the south-central United States and northern Mexico, P. clarkii is a generalist species that can survive in a wide range of freshwater habitats and is already globally widely established (USGS; Cruz and Rebelo, 2007;Larson and Olden, 2012). ...
Canals and other connected waterway systems, including the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS), have often facilitated the spread of non-native species. Electric barriers have recently emerged as a method for preventing this spread and protecting uninvaded ecosystems from new invaders. The largest system of electric barriers in the world is in the CAWS and is operated primarily to prevent the spread of invasive Asian carp. It is not known whether these barriers are effective for other species, particularly invasive invertebrates. Here, we provide data regarding the efficacy of an electric field that operates at the same parameters as the electric barrier in the CAWS in affecting behaviors of two invertebrate species, the red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii and the amphipod Hyalella azteca. We constructed an electric field within a tank that operates at the same parameters as the existing CAWS barriers and determined the effects of the electric field on our test species. At the electric field parameters of the CAWS barriers, the vast majority of P. clarkii individuals showed altered movement with maintained equilibrium. For H. azteca, behavioral responses were less extreme than for P. clarkii, with a majority of individuals experiencing altered movement. By measuring the orientation of organisms to the electric field, we determined that the test organisms are affected by the electric field, especially at lower field strengths where they exhibited no or little other behavioral response. At lower field strengths, P. clarkii exhibited changes in orientation, but at higher field strengths, individuals were less able to orient themselves. H. azteca exhibited changes in orientation to the electric field at all field strengths. The results of this study suggest that the existing electric barriers may not slow or prevent spread of invasive invertebrates—including amphipods and crayfish—through passive movement attached boats/barges or through downstream drift, but that the barriers may prevent spread by active upstream movement. Overall, our work gives new data regarding the efficacy of electric fields in preventing the spread of invasive invertebrates and can inform management decisions regarding current and future electric barriers in the CAWS.
... There are currently 13 crayfish species present in the Great Lakes, five of which are considered either invasive or native species expanding their ranges (Peters et al., 2014). Among these invaders, concern about spread of red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii into and within the Great Lakes has intensified in recent years due to detection of newly established populations in inland tributaries and watersheds in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and illegal importation and apparent use of P. clarkii as live bait (Bunk and Van Egeren, 2016;Ellison, 2015;Jacobs and Keller, 2017;Smith et al., in press). Native to the south-central United States and northern Mexico, P. clarkii was first found in the Sandusky Bay area of Lake Erie in 1967 (McLaughlin et al., 2005;Peters et al., 2014). ...
The ongoing threat of introduction of invasive species, including crayfish, to the Laurentian Great Lakes has motivated the development of predictive models to inform where these invaders are likely to establish. Our study is among the first to apply regional freshwater-specific GIS layers to species occurrence data to predict ecosystem suitability to invasions, specifically for the red swamp crayfish, Procambarus clarkii, in the Great Lakes. We combined a database of crayfish species occurrences with the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework (GLAHF) GIS layers to model habitats suitable to invasion by P. clarkii using boosted regression trees and physiological information for this species. We developed a model of all suitable crayfish habitat across the Great Lakes, then constrained this habitat to areas anticipated to be suitable for P. clarkii based on known physiological limitations of this species. Specifically, P. clarkii requires a minimum temperature of 15 °C for copulation and oviposition, with peak reproduction occurring at temperatures of 20–23 °C. We identified 2% of the Great Lakes as suitable for P. clarkii establishment and 0.88% as optimal for this crayfish, primarily located on the southern coastlines of lakes Michigan and Erie and shallow bays including Saginaw Bay (Lake Huron), Green Bay (Lake Michigan), and Henderson Bay (Lake Ontario). These predictions of where P. clarkii is likely to establish populations can be used to identify areas where education, outreach, compliance, and law enforcement efforts should seek to prevent new introductions of this crayfish and help prioritize locations for surveillance to detect newly established populations.
... The rapid inland establishment and spread of aquatic nuisance species (ANS) like the invasive carps has been greatly accelerated by the presence of the nation's waterways and navigation infrastructure over the last century (Ricciardi 2006, Jacobs andKeller 2017). The resulting spread of invaders both threatens the integrity and stability of aquatic ecosystems and has resulted in enormous ecological and economic damages (USACE 2014). ...
... Together, these two changes had the intended effect of decreasing water-bourne disease outbreaks and tremendously benefited the regional shipping economy (EDRG 2016). However, they also led to the unintended consequences of steadily accelerating the number and economic costs of ANS moving between basins (Jacobs and Keller 2017). ...
Executive Summary:
The Brandon Road Lock and Dam (BRLD) location is currently a focal point for developing a barrier to prevent Bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) and Silver carp (H. molitrix), hereafter referred to as invasive carps, from entering Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes Basin. This location is being considered because it connects the Illinois River to the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS) and ultimately Lake Michigan. While the possible effects of the proposed barrier on commercial and recreational navigation are being widely debated, the impacts of the barrier on millions of dollars in aquatic resource restoration projects and decades of management efforts are less thoroughly considered.
In addition to blocking movements of invasive carps, any barrier will also potentially eliminate upriver connectivity that is important to a variety of native fishes and freshwater mussels (hereafter referred to as mussels). Based on surveys of native fishes, we know that fish distribution and species richness in the Illinois River are steadily improving. However, very little is known about how or when fish move between habitats, and to what degree any of these might have been utilizing the lock chamber at BRLD to move upriver. The development of an upstream fish barrier, impassable by either non-native or native fishes, has potential unintended consequences for populations of native fish. We summarized long-term trends in aquatic resources to illustrate both what is known and what is uncertain about a barrier that interrupts upriver connectivity. This includes details about several potential impacts that were developed using the best and most comprehensive information collected by the IDNR-Division of Fisheries (IDNR-DF), Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS), and from the peer-reviewed literature. The summary focuses on long-term trends in species richness and presence or absence over time, found in the neighboring tributary rivers including the Des Plaines River, DuPage River, Kankakee River, Fox River, and upper Illinois River.
The primary impact of the proposed barrier project on native fish and mussels is the blockage of upriver fish movement from the Illinois River and its tributaries, past BRLD into the Des Plaines River and CAWS. Improvements in aquatic habitat quality and connectivity through dam removals upstream of BRLD have, and will continue to open additional aquatic habitat. Long-term fish community surveys in the Des Plaines River suggest numerous species of fish currently pass through the lock at BRLD and that this helped some native fishes such as the pollution intolerant Rosyface shiner (Notropis rubellus) re-establish in these formerly degraded reaches after conditions improved (Pescitelli 2017). Despite a record of improvement (similar to fishes) over recent decades, mussel diversity and numbers are currently limited in the Des Plaines River above BRLD. Recruitment of these invertebrates requires both a source of young and fish-hosts to carry them into newly improved habitats. Data suggest that there is a source of young below BRLD: seventeen species of mussels not currently present above BRLD have been documented just 21 kilometers or less below BRLD in the Dresden Pool of the upper Illinois River (an easily covered distance for fish). Thus, any reduction in upriver connectivity will be a threat to the ongoing improvement in both upstream fish and mussel populations.
The extent to which the current fish community above BRLD relies on connectivity through the lock to maintain community stability is uncertain. Though it appears likely continued increases in species richness upriver of BRLD would be truncated after implementation of a barrier, further targeted investigations into trends in recruitment, movement, and abundance may help guide choices of appropriate mitigation efforts. This information could also inform efforts to prioritize the management, translocation, or stocking used to supplement fish-hosts required for rehabilitation of mussels if a barrier is implemented at BRLD.
... In this paper we use individual-level self-reported survey data to determine how the behavior of recreational boaters may affect the chance of species spread across a landscape that contains many waterbodies. We focus on Illinois, a U.S. state that borders both the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, and which is subsequently important for the spread of AIS throughout North America (Jacobs and Keller, 2017). Our survey results allow us to determine a subset of frequently visited Illinois waterbodies and to use social network analysis (Scott, 2000) to investigate the sequence in which boaters move among these waterbodies. ...
The spread of non-native aquatic species among waterbodies has become a major social, environmental, and economic concern. An important mechanism of this spread is the inadvertent transport of organisms on recreational boats as they are moved among waterbodies. Organisms can survive on the exterior of the boat, the interior, attached to fishing tackle, and can be intentionally moved by boaters. In response, local, state, and federal U.S. agencies have invested in outreach campaigns to educate boaters about the impacts of invasive aquatic species and the ways that boaters can reduce the risk of spread. We surveyed boaters in the U.S. state of Illinois to determine their travel patterns and how frequently they clean different parts of their boats. A majority of boaters reported that they always take recommended actions to clean their boat exterior (72% of respondents), boat interior (78%), and fishing tackle (55%), and only 4% reported that they intentionally move organisms. We used network methods to analyze the movement of recreational boaters and found strong connections among 28 highly visited waterbodies. When we removed the 38% of respondents who Always take recommended actions to reduce risk of species spread by all four mechanisms this network was minimally altered and still contained all 28 waterbodies. This indicates that despite high adoption of conservation behaviors there is a continuing risk of non-native species transport among all waterbodies. This work shows that further action is necessary if the impacts of invasive aquatic species are to be reduced in the future.
... Such illegal introductions include the release of sportfish, baitfish, or pet fish (Johnson et al., 2009). Unauthorized introductions can also include inadvertent introductions that are the result of contaminated fish stockings, human error in the stocking process, or a by-product of some other human activity such as ballast water release (Davies et al., 2013;Jacobs & Keller, 2017). In our study, contaminated fish stockings were usually detected when biologists spotted unwanted fish species entering the waterbody during the stocking process, or after-the-fact by tracing the chemical signatures of otoliths back to the water source where the suspected stocked fish had been raised. ...
... Release of aquarium fish is the most important pathway in Great Britain (Keller et al., 2009) and Florida (Shafland et al., 2008), but is of minor importance in the Rocky Mountain region because cold winters prevent establishment of tropical fishes. Ballast water release is the major pathway in states and provinces in the Great Lakes region of North America (Kerr et al., 2005;Jacobs & Keller, 2017) but the Rocky Mountain region lacks a transoceanic shipping industry. In the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, release of bait fish is a major pathway for fish introductions because propagule pressure is moderately high, most released species are adapted to local environmental conditions, and the pool of species available for transplantation is large (Lapointe et al., 2016). ...
Unauthorized introductions are an ongoing problem for fisheries managers. To understand reasons for the continued spread of nonnative fish species, the pathways of nonnative fish introductions were analyzed from 1961 to 2017 in Wyoming, USA. Unauthorized introductions are those that occurred without oversight of a management agency. The largest source of unauthorized introductions was the deliberate, illegal release of fish by the public at 46% of the 215 introduction events. The next largest source was colonization of new water bodies after initial establishment at 29%. Inadvertent (accidental) stockings (8%) and unknown sources (17%) were the other pathways documented. Management responses consisted of attempts at complete eradication (9%), population reduction (10%), or containment (3%) although in the majority of introductions (79%) no action was taken. The introductions involved 49 taxa but three sport fish constituted 26.5% of all events: brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis, walleye Sander vitreus, and yellow perch Perca flavescens. The prevalence of illegal introductions and the difficulty of eradicating introduced species indicate the continuing need for public education and enforcement efforts. The high frequency whereby species colonize new waterbodies indicates that fish introductions, even those authorized by management agencies, must consider the high probability that species will expand into unintended waterways.
Aquatic invasive species (AIS) have caused widespread damage to environmental and socio-economic systems across the globe. One vector of biological invasions is recreational boaters who are at risk of unintentionally introducing AIS when moving between freshwater ecosystems. The drivers of boater behaviors and belief systems therefore warrant careful research attention, yet surprisingly few studies have empirically tested how the ecological context of biological invasions influences the behavioral decisions of recreational boaters. We asked: what are the relationships among boater proximity to AIS, perceptions of risk and efficacy, familiarity with AIS, and engagement in AIS prevention behavior? Drawing from a survey of boaters administered across the U.S. state of Illinois, we quantified and spatially located where boaters lived and evaluated their behavioral patterns. We then combined these survey data with spatially explicit observations of AIS across four taxa, which were collated using secondary data sources. We observed high levels of perceived risks from biological invasions, strong beliefs that individuals could make a difference in minimizing the spread of AIS, and low AIS-related familiarity. Results from a structural equation path model indicated that proximity to invasive fish species, but not other types of AIS, was associated with higher risk perceptions, which in turn, influenced self-efficacy and the intended behaviors of boaters. This study offers new insights on how decision-makers can optimize their effort and direct attention toward high and low priority locations defined in both social and ecological terms.
