Seton Hall Helps Combat Invasive, Ancient Fish In Great Lakes

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — “Ground-breaking" research and technology that was recently born at Seton Hall University in New Jersey may eventually help to rein in an ancient, invasive fish in the Michigan Great Lakes, administrators say.

Scientists at Seton Hall University have teamed up with their peers at Michigan State University and the U.S. Geological Survey to research the use of polymers for the controlled release of chemical signals into natural waterways, school administrators announced Wednesday.

The resulting technology may help to provide an environmentally safe way to control invasive species such as the sea lamprey, which has “devastated native fish species and damaged fisheries in the Great Lakes,” according to Seton Hall University Professor James Hanson.

“This sea lamprey study demonstrates the flexibility of the polymer emitter technology for release of chemical cues in aqueous environments, after previous use with sharks and trout,” Hanson said. “For the sea lamprey, this gives us another technique to be employed in sea lamprey control.”

According to Hanson:

“The sea lamprey, Petromyzon marinus, is an ancient jawless fish, native to the Atlantic Ocean and the streams feeding into it. They are not native to the Great Lakes and it is believed that they gained access to the Great Lakes when the Welland Canal allowed the lamprey to travel around a great natural barrier. In their parasitic phase, they have devastated native fish species and damaged fisheries in the Great Lakes. The sea lamprey is a nocturnal fish that relies on odors to find prey, avoid predators and navigate back to rivers to spawn.”

Seton Hall University administrators shared some details of the study’s methodology:

“In field studies, 3kPZS, a component of the male sex pheromone of the sea lamprey was released from the emitters. Emitters releasing 3kPZS were placed in simulated lamprey nests in the Ocqueoc River and behavior of tagged female lamprey evaluated, revealing attraction of female lamprey to the 3kPZS released by the emitters. Traps on the Cheboygan, Manistique, and Muskegon rivers were baited with 3kPZS containing emitters, resulting in increased capture of female lampreys. The field work with the sea lamprey demonstrates how the polymer emitter technology represents a far more cost-effective approach to releasing waterborne odors to control invaders than the use of pumps.”

The technology born at Seton Hall University may prove to be “essential” to the $7 billion Great Lakes fishery, said Robert Lambe, executive secretary of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, the agency responsible for sea lamprey control, which funded the research.

“Although we have reduced sea lamprey populations by 90 percent in most areas of the Great Lakes, the invasive pest can be tenacious,” Lambe said. “The commission is continually seeking ways to improve sea lamprey control. One promising technique is the use of chemical odor cues to attract or repel sea lampreys—attract them into traps, for instance, or repel them away from good spawning habitat. The polymer emitter technology developed by scientists from Seton Hall University and Michigan State University brings us a big step closer to using chemical odor cues as a major sea lamprey control technique.”

More on this research is available by reading the article at PLOS ONE here.

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Photo courtesy of Seton Hall University