The Science of Destroying Invaders

(bright electronic music) - The Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center, MAISRC, was created in 2012.

The University of Minnesota, the state legislature and many stakeholders across the state came together and said, enough's enough with this invasive species problem.

We needed to develop science-based solutions to get ourselves out of it.

(bright electronic music) There isn't a cooperative research center like this elsewhere in the country that's working on all four of these organismal groups, the fish, the plants, the invertebrates and microbes altogether and supporting research to do that.

We've got dozens of species we're worried about here in Minnesota right now and there are tenfold more on our doorstep that we're worried about coming in.

They come in on the boats, they come in through the garden and aquarium trade.

There's lots of pathways for introduction.

The value of having a center-based approach for a problem like this is it's just so incredibly complex and large scale.

We bring together disciplines from across the University and stakeholders across the state, country and around the world to help solve these problems.

We have right now about 40 researchers that are affiliated with MAISRC.

On campus, we have a pretty incredible research facility.

It's a 10,000 square foot bio containment laboratory.

- We really try to balance very short term, finding solutions and tools in a couple of years with kind of what we refer to as moonshots.

So longer term investment in research that could have huge impacts over time.

And one of those is exploring the zebra mussel genome and seeing if there are ways that we can kind of take advantage of zebra mussel genetics to knock back those populations.

- Before MAISRC was established, there wasn't a PhD level scientist focusing on that species, which is pretty shocking considering the scale of the problem here in the state.

What we have going on in these tanks are different life stages of zebra mussels.

We're testing genetic control strategies to see if we can turn genes on and off.

And if we can do that, then we can get them to do whatever we want.

In this case, one of the first ideas is turning off the gene that expresses the byssal threads.

So they have those little threads that the zebra mussel use to attach to things and if we can prevent that from developing, they won't attach and they'll die.

Native mussels don't have those genes, so this is a pretty species-specific strategy.

They can construct synthetic DNA, put that into algae and then feed the algae to the zebra mussels.

The zebra mussels will take it in, they'll die and that'll be at the end of it.

- We have long term research into management of common carp, which have a huge impact on water quality in the state.

And some of those research tools that have been developed in that project over the last four years are now at a stage where we can start pushing them out.

- Common carp are a big problem because they root around in the bottom, that's where they eat and as they do that they're re-suspending the nutrients, the sediments, so you get these really nutrient-rich bodies of water that can never get clean because of the carp are constantly stirring them up.

So if you can control the fish, it cleans the water and then native plants can recover, sport fish can recover, ducks can come back.

What you can see on these carp, see those green, fluorescent green splotches, those are genetically modified cells inside these carp.

So we can insert a gene that fluoresces.

Turn the light off, they look normal.

Turn the light on and you can tell which ones have the genetic insert.

This is a research strategy to see if our tests are working.

And as you can see here, so far so good.

This is still very much a research based experiment, laboratory-based research experiment.

But what they have been doing here is raising these fish up from eggs, juveniles to adults, then they spawn them and start the cycle over.

And at that egg stage is when they insert the genetic constructs that they're trying to test.

The goal, long term, would be to cause the population to collapse out in the environment.

The concept sounds pretty sci-fi in the invasive species management world.

But this type of technology has been used for agricultural pests, vector-borne disease, genetically modified mosquitoes are a similar premise as what we're trying here in the common carp.

That's one form of genetic control.

Another one would be the use of pathogens to control invasive species.

So for example, we have a virus that is highly specific to common carp.

It's already here in Minnesota.

It's highly lethal to common carp.

And if there are ways to harness that virus to induce mortality events causing populations to collapse, that seems like a strategy worth looking into.

And then there's predatory bio control.

Could you release a predator or some sort of parasite or something to interrupt the lifecycle?

And there's different ways that that happens for different species.

Those are questions that we're trying to think about and get answers to.

So a lot of questions again to think through on the regulatory and ethical side of things, but the technology development is going pretty smoothly.

- As it is right now, there are no ways to completely eradicate a species and so a lot of that research into prevention and early detection is really important in making sure that the problem doesn't get worse in the state.

- When we look over time, new species coming into Minnesota, there seems to be a decline in how fast new things are coming.

I think it's a testament to how well the prevention programs are working.

That said, with all of these things, we expect to be surprised.

Starry stonewort, for example, is a high profile invader in the state, suddenly seemingly, showed up in 2015, out of nowhere and it's been found now in about 20 lakes in the state.

It wasn't on our radar, really.

Wasn't here, it somehow slipped in.

So while we've got good programs, the door is still cracked and we want to keep an eye on it.

- Aquatic invasive species are impacting the state whether you are a angler, a hiker, a boater.

Invasive species are here and they are impacting our ecosystems.

And while in the short term, we may not see those impacts, over time, if we don't address them, they will change the ecosystems that we're used to and will have impacts on the ways that people recreate in the state.

It's really important, I think, to have a research center that's devoted just to invasive species, just because of the scale of the problem.

Being able to focus resources and brain energy and people power on this one issue allows us to really move the ball forward quickly on finding solutions for invasive species in the state.

After 10 years of research at MAISRC, we now have tools and recommendations that have come out of research projects that we're ready to share.

- There's lots of ways that the research moves out into the field.

There could be methods or tools, technologies that are developed that just sort of roll out and are easily implemented by managers.

We work really closely with the DNR.

They're our central partner to the work we do.

A private company could take that technology, license it, do whatever they need to do to get it out there as a product in the real world.

In Minnesota, where we're blessed with a water-rich state, that's so core to our cultural values, when something comes in and disrupts that, that's who we are, that's what we care about and this is something that's changing it.

The world's a changing place.

We're trying to change it for the better and try to get these species under control.