The Erie Canal revolutionized transportation and commerce by giving farmers and merchants a cheaper, easier way to move goods across the state.
The present-day canal is primarily a recreational waterway, though it might also be taking on a new, undesirable role as a pathway for the spread of aquatic invasive species between some state waters, including the Great Lakes.
That’s why Nature Conservancy researchers are on the canal this summer, collecting water samples. The samples, which will be location-tagged, will be tested to see if they contain DNA markers that match up with known genetic sequences from some key invasives, such as Asian carp, northern snakehead, killer shrimp, Asian clam, and hydrilla.
“We look for aquatic invasive species in the canal because the canal has so much connectivity,” says Rob Williams, a conservation practitioner with the Nature Conservancy of Central and Western New York. “It connects the Great Lakes to the Finger Lakes, the Finger Lakes to Oneida Lake, Oneida Lake to the Champlain Canal to the Hudson River. So it’s a potentially big pathway.”
The crew traveled through Rochester last week. The samples they collected will be processed by a SUNY Brockport lab before heading to Central Michigan University for analysis.
The environmental DNA testing is very sensitive and allows researchers to detect even trace amounts of genetic material, says Andrew Tucker, aquatic invasive species applied ecologist with the Nature Conservancy’s Great Lakes Project.
The goal of the testing is to identify potential threats before the species establish themselves so that the threat can be contained or eradicated, Tucker says.
This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2014.
Although it gets no press, pale swallow-wort is also using the canal, highways and rail lines to spread as well. The canal path edges are choked with it in some spots.
According to some sources, the Erie Canal (or in its earliest incarnation, the canal, or Clinton’s ditch) issued the sea lamprey to the Great Lakes. There might be more invasives that made their way to the Great Lakes via the canal, but I don’t think the canal is just “taking on a new, undesirable role as a pathway for the spread of aquatic invasive species.”
Note: “It is not clear whether it is native to Lake Ontario, where it was first noticed in the 1830s, or whether it was introduced through the Erie Canal which opened in 1825.[” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_lamprey
More on Invasive Species in our area: http://rochesterenvironment.com/invasive_s…