Willard Bay has a native Daphnia species of cladoceran, but recently a foreign invader arrived. Lester's research consisted of studying the reaction of Willard Bay fish to the exotic Daphnia. She will present the results of her research at the URCO Student Showcase today from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Taggart Student Center on the USU campus. I did experiments with juvenile fish, and they really prefer the native daphnia. I think it's because the exotic daphnia have an elongated head, and large spiky tail spines, which the small fish choke on.
Some exotic species can exist harmoniously in their new environment.
However, some are a nuisance, and others spread so quickly they choke out many native species and seriously alter the ecosystem. She said a problem could occur if the exotic daphnia spreads so rapidly that it chokes out the native daphnia. It was discovered in Willard Bay by USU professor Chris Luecke, who is supervising Lester's work. The invader is just 2 millimeters long, barely visible to the naked eye. Lester's fieldwork mainly took place last fall and involved long days scooping samples of zooplankton and fish out of Willard Bay.