According to the Cornell Chronicle, years of efforts to remove an invasive species of smallmouth bass from an Adirondack lake have led scientists to a surprising discovery about why these efforts have not been successful.
What’s happening?
Smallmouth bass may be a native North American species, but the species was only introduced to the Adirondacks in the 1900s. After their introduction, the smallmouth bass did what invasive species do and quickly took over many of the region’s lakes, which resulted in significant declines in native fish populations.
However, despite 25 years of efforts to eradicate the smallmouth bass from these lakes, the populations continued to thrive. Now, researchers have published a study with the surprising reason why eradication efforts have failed.
According to the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, efforts to physically remove this species from these lakes to decrease the population size were unsuccessful because, over time, the smallmouth bass evolved to mature earlier and grow more quickly, resulting in smaller fish but a larger overall population.
One of the senior researchers on the study, Peter McIntyre, explained: “Twenty-five years ago, Cornell’s Adirondack Fishery Research Program set out to test whether we could functionally eradicate smallmouth bass from a lake. It took us 25 years to prove why the answer is no: the fish evolved to outmaneuver us.”
Why are evolving invasive species concerning?
Invasive species, like smallmouth bass, already cause a plethora of problems when introduced to new ecosystems, so if they can evolve to avoid eradication, these issues worsen.
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Because invasive species spread so rapidly, they can destroy native species and ecosystems by outcompeting them for food and other vital resources. Invasive species can also introduce new diseases into ecosystems, which can decimate native species populations.
Depending on the type of invasive species, other problems caused by their introduction could include impacted human food supplies, more extreme weather patterns, and altered soil chemistry.
However, by prioritizing and protecting native species, as researchers tried to do in the Adirondacks by removing smallmouth bass, food supplies are protected, the spread of disease is limited, and natural resources are better conserved.
What’s being done about the smallmouth bass?
The discovery of the smallmouth bass’s evolution to outwit eradication highlights the need to prevent invasive species from entering ecosystems in the first place.
However, for the smallmouth bass already in these Adirondack lakes, removing them less often or only removing a particular subset may be the solution. Doing this might reduce the bass’s evolutionary need to adapt, but more research will be needed to determine this.
As one researcher said, according to the Cornell Chronicle: “Long-term studies of management efforts are critical, not only for deepening our understanding of natural ecosystems, but also for evaluating the effectiveness of specific management tools.”
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