The sea lamprey drastically changed the Great Lakes ecosystem. (Photo courtesy of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission)
Researchers say they’ve discovered a migration pheromone
in sea lamprey. It’s a natural attractant that could boost efforts to
control the invasive parasite. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Transcript
Researchers say they’ve discovered a migration pheromone in sea lamprey. It’s a natural attractant that could boost efforts to control the invasive parasite. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Each lamprey can kill forty pounds of fish in its lifetime. Managers use a pesticide to keep the lamprey numbers down, but it’s expensive, and sometimes it kills other fish.
University of Minnesota biologist Peter Sorensen says he’s isolated a chemical signal put out by lamprey larvae. The larvae live in streams, and the signal apparently tells adult lamprey that the stream is a good place to lay eggs.
“We’ve got a cue that’s very powerful, very safe, we don’t need very much of it, and it can control the distribution of the lamprey in a way that other things can’t.”
Sorensen says the pheromone can be used to corral lamprey into areas where they can be trapped or treated with pesticide. The pheromone is being tested in a river in Michigan.
For the GLRC, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.