Sea Lamprey Research Paper

Caution: Impacts on the aquatic and/or terrestrial ecosystem. Sea lampreys attach to fish with their sucking disk and sharp teeth, rasp through scales and skin, and feed on the fish’s body fluids, often killing the fish. During its life as a parasite, each sea lamprey can kill 40 or more pounds of fish. Sea lampreys are so destructive that under some conditions, only one out of seven fish attacked by a sea lamprey will survive. Sea lampreys have had an enormous negative impact on the Great Lakes fishery. Because sea lampreys did not originally be part of the great lakes ecosystems, their aggressive, behavior gives them a strong advantage over the fish native to the Great Lakes. Sea lampreys prey on all species of large Great Lakes fish. …show more content…
The methods are lampricides, barriers/traps, and pheromones/ alarm cues. This is all being done by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Lampricides: The primary method to control sea lampreys is the application of the lampricides (such as TFM) to target sea lamprey larvae in their nurseries. What they essentially do is kill the larvae before they develop lethal mouths and migrate to the lakes to feed on fish. They are not very dangerous because most organisms are not affected by them. Traps/ Barriers: To successfully reproduce, sea lampreys require access to habitats containing spawning gravel and soft substrates for the sea lampreys to burrow into. The jumping ability of adult sea lampreys is limited, so barriers function to block adult access to spawning habitat and, therefore, reduce the amount of habitat that sea lampreys can infest. Sea lampreys are vulnerable to capture as adults when they move upstream to spawn or when they move out to prey on fish. Pheromones/ alarm cues: Sea lampreys have an extremely keen sense of smell, and you could exploit that sense for sea lamprey control. Sea lampreys