Establishment of Gobiidae in the Great Lakes Basin

Abstract

A tubenose goby (Proterorhinus marmoratus), a European endangered species native to the Black and Caspian seas, was recovered on 11 April 1990 from the travelling screens of the Belle River Power Plant located on the St. Clair River, Michigan. Subsequently, anglers caught three round gobies (Neogobius melanostomus) in the St. Clair River near Sarnia, Ontario. Thirty-one tubenose gobies and 11 round gobies were impinged or trawled at or near the Power Plant in the fall and winter of 1990–91. Nine round gobies (29–61 mm total length) are believed to be young-of-the-year. These species were probably transported to the Great Lakes in ballast water, may have successfully colonized the St. Clair River, and will probably spread throughout the Great Lakes. They are expected to impact directly other benthic fishes, such as sculpins (Cottus spp.), darters (Etheostoma spp.), and logperch (Percina caprodes), and in turn act as prey for walleye (Stizostedion vitreum).

Competitive interactions for food resources between invasive racer goby Babka gymnotrachelus and native European bullhead Cottus gobio

“…This result is similar to those obtained for invasive round goby in its interactions with the native North American cottid, the mottled sculpin (Jude et al 1992;Dubs and Corkum 1996) and logperch (Balshine et al 2005), being more aggressive in defending their territories and more efficient in displacing the other fish from their shelters. Round goby have also been found to be more aggressive than ruffe Gymnocephalus cernuus, which is also native to Eurasia but introduced to North America (Leigh 1998).…”

Assessing the ecological impacts of invasive species based on their functional responses and abundances

“…Abundances were estimated from surveys and the literature. We chose the high-impact invasive round goby, Neogobius melanostomus, a Ponto-Caspian fish which has invaded freshwaters in Europe (Manné et al 2013) and N. America (Jude et al 1992), leading to drastic declines in native aquatic invertebrates and fish (Barton et al 2005;Pagnucco and Ricciardi 2015). We first experimentally derived the functional responses of N. melanostomus and a native trophic analogue, the European bullhead Cottus gobio, towards two benthic macroinverebrates, the amphipod Echinogammarus berilloni and the isopod Asellus aquaticus.…”

Different life-histories of native and invasiveNeogobius melanostomusand the possible role of phenotypic plasticity in the species’ invasion success

“…Their impacts vary from local environmental disturbances (competition for food and habitat, predation, introduction of parasites, replacing native species), over the extinction of endemic species, to large economic losses (aquaculture) and serious threats to human health, such as allergies, introduction of parasites and disease (Janssen and Jude, 2001;Lauer et al, 2004;Hogan et al, 2007;Karlson et al, 2007;Kornis et al, 2012). One of the most successful invasive fish species with negative impacts is round goby Neogobius melanostomus (Pallas 1814) that has spread from its original Ponto-Caspian area to west and central Europe and even to North America (Jude et al, 1992;Skóra and Stolarski, 1993;Copp et al, 2005;Verreycken et al, 2011). It has colonized not only many European rivers (such as Danube, Sava, Morava, Dyje, Lek and Scheldt) but also coastal areas in the Baltic and North Seas (Balážová-L'avrinčíková and Verreycken et al, 2011).…”