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The Mysis Crisis: How Fisheries Scientists Turned an Isolated Shrimp into an "Invasive Species"

Leif Fredrickson

March 16, 2018

Mysis Crisis
This page is best viewed on a laptop or larger screen with a Chrome or Firefox browser. Start with the timeline to understand how the mysis crisis unfolded. Then explore the map, which visualizes where mysis shrimp were introduced to and from, and what fish species they were intended to bolster. For further reading and images sources, see the references section.

Mysis Timeline

How to use: To move through the slides, click the arrows at the right and left of the slides. In the timeline below the slides, you can click on text boxes to move to specific slides. On the left edge of the timeline are arrows that reduce or increase the time span, and a return arrow to go back to the first slide.


timeline | map | references

Mysis Map

How to use the map: This lines on this map show what lakes fisheries managers collected mysids from, and what lakes they transplanted them to. The line colors show which fish species the fisheries managers were targeting (trying to improve) by transplanting mysids. A good way to begin is click the fullscreen button (the square in the top left) and then click "Start Animation" (top right) to see a thirty second animation of all the introductions in North America taking place by year. The year counter is at the bottom of the map. You can also click on specific target fish species (top right) to see a static map of these introductions and the time period they took place. Finally, you can click on the lakes themselves to get a popup with specific information and stories about those lakes. You can make the map zoom in or out (top left, and with mouse). Zooming while the animation is running does not work well. You can clear and rest the map frame with the "Reset" button (below).

Lake Color Key: BLUE=Source lake of native mysids for introductions; YELLOW=Site of intentional introductions; GREEN=Site of intentional introductions and source lake for intentional introductions; RED=Site of intentional introductions and source lake for unintentional introduction; ORANGE=Site of unintentional introductions.


timeline | map | references

Leif Fredrickson is a historian and creator of Enviro-History.

References

General References
Citation

Leif Fredrickson, "The Mysis Crisis: How Fisheries Scientists Turned an Isolated Shrimp into an "Invasive Species"," Enviro-History.com, March 16, 2018, http://Enviro-History.com/visualizations/mysis/.