has a high potential for rapid adaptation to extreme environmental conditions, possibly leading to significant long-term impacts on North American waters. Also, the colonization of deeper water by D. r. bugensis, exposes the quagga to a new range of environmental conditions and new habitats. It causes many of the same problems (stripping life-supporting algae, damaging boats, power plants, and harbors and destroying the native mussel population) as the equally invasive zebra mussel of Russia. It is also displacing native burrowing amphipod (Diporeia hoyi) from the deep waters of Lake Erie. In January 2007, quagga mussels were discovered at a marina in the Nevada portion of Lake Mead, and two other lakes on the Colorado River, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu. In 2008, the threat of quagga mussels being introduced at Lake Casitas and Westlake Lake in California from recreational boating resulted in the lakes' banning the use of outside boats. As of March 2008, other lakes such as Castaic and Lake Cachuma are considering similar bans. In June 2008, the mussels were confirmed in Lake Granby, Colorado. Larval quagga mussels were found in the water. After 5 years of negative testing Lake Granby, Colorado has been classified as a negative waterbody for quagga mussel veligers. Quagga mussels are now in all parts of Lake Powell on the Utah and Arizona border. They were also suspected in Deer Creek Reservoir at the top of Provo Canyon in Utah, but this body of water has since been delisted as a quagga-suspected water after 3 years of negative testing. Quagga mussels as prey In 1994, invasive-species biologist Anthony Ricciardi determined that North American yellow perch found the invasive dreissenid species palatable. In 2004, he determined that yellow perch, over the intervening 10 years, had developed an appetite for the quagga mussel. While this sounds like good news, the problem is that this feeding process introduces contaminants into the food chain, notably Clostridium botulinum''. Redear sunfish, a specialized mollusk-eating fish, are now being stocked in the Colorado River drainage as a defense against the quaggas. As with the yellow perch, this predator–prey relationship could cause toxins and micro-organisms to move up the food chain. Although quaggas are edible for humans, eating them is not recommended due to the accumulation of toxins, pollutants, and microorganisms within the mussels' bodies. References External links Dreissena bugensis - Small blurb on Quagga mussel (with pic) on Anthony Ricciardi's