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St Lawrence Essay

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Mandi Robertson Natural History Essay Bio Young St Lawrence River Letting in Invasive species The St Lawrence once was a body of water that had its own way of working and its own life cycles.Throughout time we are seeing some little and some drastic changes. Unfortunately as humans we do make mistakes such as being very unmindful and ruining the living environment for some species. We as outsiders have let in things such as species and new creatures into our river that could potentially ruin the fish, plants and fungi that we see today or have seen in the past. Statics say since 1959 more than 186 new aquatic species have been discovered, for example zebra mussels and gobies. Each of these three having there own impact but, unfortunately mostly being negative ones. They are throwing off what was once a nearly perfect life cycle. …show more content…

It is protected by a brownish striped shell, this individual mussel was originally homed in Eurasia (Europe), but now can be found within our river, the St Lawrence. Zebra mussels are filter feeders which being so they reduce the amount of plankton for other species. In large quantities when eating they can clear the water up, which allows the sunlight to penetrate deeper into the Saint Lawrence. Zebra mussels don't eat certain types of plankton, which impacts other species greatly due to the toxic algal blooms. With clearer waters, light sensitive fish, like the walleye, swim to deeper waters to escape the sunlight. Many scientist to this day are concerned with the health of fish and birds who eat the zebra mussel. Meaning if we went back in our history this could of possibly never been a

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