Food-web modification by an invertebrate predator in the Great Salt Lake (USA)

During unusually wet years the salinity of the Great Salt Lake (Utah) decreased from above 100 g/L to 50 g/L. This allowed the predaceous insect Trichocorixa verticalis to invade the pelagic region of the lake and reach a mean summer density of 52/m3. Concurrent changes in the pelagic ecosystem were: a decrease in the dry biomass of the previously dominant filter-feeding brine shrimp Artemia franciscana from 720 to 2 mg/m3, the invasion of three...