One of the reason people freak out about invasive species – new, fast-spreading plants, bugs or beasts that suddenly show up in an ecosystem – is because they can cause other unexpected and often undesired changes. Case in point: The arrival of the spiny water flea may be causing more cyanobacteria blooms in Lake Winnipesaukee, because they eat predators that eat the cyanobacteria.
Even if true, a lot of other things can be increasing the blooms, including shoreline development, which adds nutrients to the water through fertilizer runoff and less-than-perfect septic systems, and the warming climate, which reduces the winter die-back. But at the very least, the spiny water flea doesn’t help.
IndepthNH has the story (here).
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