What are the risks involved when introducing a new species to an environment?

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Fluffy the unicornn :))))

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For example, zebra mussles help and hurt freshwater lakes in different ways. Some scientists believe that they should introduce a predator of the zebra mussle, the pumpkinseed fish, into the environment. What would be a risk in doing this?
 
the great lakes already contain pumpkinseed fish, they are native to the area... and i'm not sure where else zebra mussels are a problem...


but intorducing a natural predator of an alien species (some other fish to eat the mussels) could result in the new fish destroying the food sources for native fish, they could flat out not eat the mussels, and they could just die from inadaptability to the new environment

there's an episode of 'the simpsons' where something like this happens

bart inadvertantly hatches a pair of lizards from south america that decimate local pidgeon populations (not a bad thing) but the town becomes over run with lizards...
the town elects a plan to introduce snakes to eat the lizards, lisa asks "won't be then be over run by snakes?" the mayor says "don't worry we'll just introduce some weasels to eat the snakes"
"what about the weasels"
"we'll introduce lions to eat them, and gorillas to kill the lions"
"well then what about the gorillas?"
"don't worry when winter hits they'll all freeze"

if you can find a youtube video or something of this scene i think your teacher would really like it
the episode is called "bart, the mother"
 
The fish that is known to eat the zebra mussel could be introduced into the system and find that another mussel is much easier to eat. So instead of spending all its energy eating the zebra mussel it will deplete the ecosystem of something else. Then there will be two invasive creatures that will be using up resources that native animals need.
Also, if the fish did find the mussel appealing and managed to rid freshwater lakes of the zebra mussel, it would most likely not die off after eating the zebra mussel and move on to another prey. Then there would be an invasive fish and they would have to find another species to bring in to rid the waters of that animal and it would perpetuate and never ending cycle...
 
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