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Is carbonated air a repellant of Asian carp?

 


By STEVE BINDER
Illinois Correspondent

URBANA, Ill. — A cheap, plentiful carbon dioxide (CO2) supply may prove to be an effective tool in the fight to keep the invasive Asian carp species from inundating the Great Lakes, according to research conducted by scientists at the University of Illinois.
And the news couldn’t come at a better time, as federal officials earlier this month acknowledged two young carp were discovered in the Illinois River, 12 miles closer to Lake Michigan than when officials measured the waterway six months earlier, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Cory Suski, a researcher at the University of Illinois, already showed through prior research that bubbling CO2 shot through water repelled adult Asian carp.
His latest round of research focused on juvenile fish, with additional species, and the results were the same: bubbled CO2 in the water is something the fish avoided.
“We conducted carbon dioxide challenge experiments on juveniles of four species, largemouth bass, bluegill, silver carp and bighead carp, and on eight-day-old hatched fry of both carp species,” Suski said. “Results … demonstrate that juvenile fishes of all four species actively avoid areas of water with elevated CO2 once concentrations reached approximately 200 milligrams per liter, which is lower than a can of carbonated soda.”
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials, who oversee the nation’s waterways, have in recent years relied on a series of electronic barriers to keep Asian carp from advancing into the Great Lakes.
Asian carp were imported from China in the 1970s and used to clear fish ponds in southern states. It is believed that with flooding events they migrated along waterways linked to the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.
Prolific plankton eaters, the fish reproduce at high rates, gobble up food for native fish and take over rivers, particularly the Illinois.
But dozens of state lawmakers in Michigan, Illinois and Ohio long have been critical of the federal government’s response; it wasn’t until last year that the Army Corps released its long-awaited study with recommendations on how to keep the fish from infiltrating the Great Lakes.
Its most expensive recommendation, at $18.2 billion, was complete barrier construction to separate all waterways from Lake Michigan.
The suggested time frame for completion was 25 years.
In his latest research, which was published in a recent issue of Biological Invasions, Suski explains he used young larvae in field tests. “Even at only eight days old, there are physiological problems happening to those animals when they are put into a high CO₂ environment,” he said.
“The biomarkers of stress turned on. So we now have evidence all the way from large adult fish to eight-day-old fish that CO2 causes disturbance.”
Suski noted the two main species of Asian carp, the bighead and silver, already have worked their way up the Mississippi River and into Minnesota and are about 21 miles from the electric barriers along the Chicago Area Waterway System.
“If they get into the Great Lakes, they have potential to spread throughout eastern North America,” he explained.
He said the use of CO2 doesn’t pose any safety risks, is relatively cheap to use and is portable with little installation or equipment required. The gas can be easily pumped into a small backwater area where there are known populations of carp, basically with a hose and tank of CO2.
His research was supported by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Geological Survey through the EPA’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
11/25/2015