Question

Assume that a new parasite that infests blue crabs is introduced into the Hudson River, decimating blue crab populations. Look at the structure of this simplified open-water food web, then drag the labels to predict how the population of each organism would be affected.
Surprisingly, as Strayer and his colleagues continued their research, some of the zebra mussels impacts began to reverse in the Hudson. Populations of zooplankton and invertebrates that had dramati ally decreased after the zebra mussel's introduction began to rebound, and the zebra mussel population declined. To determine why these changes were occurring, the research team hypothesized that increased predation on zebra mussels by crabs and other species may be the reason for this reversal. Totest this hypothesis, they placed cages around some groups of mussels to keep out predators, and left other groups of mussels in the apen and exposed to predators. They found that mussels within the cages grew larger than mussels autside the cages, indicating that predators were preventing mussels in the nver from reaching the full size. Predators such as the blue crab were eating more and more of the mussels, and large mussels were becoming rare. As the average size of the mussels decreased, their filtering capacity fell by more than 80%, and more zooplankton e that a new parasite that infests blue crabs is introduced into the Hudson River decimating blue crab populations. Look at the structure of this simplified open-water food web, then drag the labels to predict how the population of each Ass organism would be affected. Simplified Open-water Food Web decreases decreases blu e crab cormorant increases decreases decreases ebra American shad decreases decreases plankton zooplankton Submit My Answers Ulpe

Answer 1