Department Aquatic Ecology
Population Genomics and the Spread of the Quagga Mussel
The quagga mussel has been spreading rapidly across European lakes for years often going unnoticed until its ecological and economic impacts become impossible to ignore. But where do the populations in Switzerland actually come from? Were they introduced more than once? And are there pathways through which the mussel has been spreading that we simply didn't know about?
To find out, we read the complete genetic code of individual mussels think of it as a genetic fingerprint. We are analysing more than 600 genomes from Switzerland, other European countries, North America, and the species' original home around the Black and Caspian Seas. This allows us to piece together how the quagga mussel has spread across the globe.
Why does this matter? Knowing where an invasion started helps us understand how it spreads and where we need to act. The genetic data add a new dimension to existing monitoring programmes and allow us to distinguish between new introduction events and the mussel simply spreading further from where it already was.
