Just came across this on the Canoe site. It seems that our own JimC also has something of an expertise on the matter.
Is this likely to affect travellers, and might it drive us all Lemming like into the sea??
And from JimC:-For those who may not have heard, a foreign shrimp that kills native UK water life has been found for the first time in the UK in Grapham Water where there is now a 'lock down' of boats in and out of the club. A National 12 Open this weekend was cancelled but boats already stored within the club grounds are still able to be sailed, but not taken from the club. In an attempt to protect native wild life, other lakes, at least in the Midlands, are being checked to discover if the Graham killer shrimps are part of a wider problem. The shrimps could be spread from lake to lake on boats or within the open spaces of trolleys, or naturally by birds.
...andTell you what Colin, as it happens the Gammaridae is something I know a little about from my college days: would you believe that you can plot the salinity gradient of a estuary or stream joining a beach by the different species of gammarids... I'll inspect the shrimps on the beach before we launch and let you all know! Its something the sea sailors don't need to worry about BTW, the thing is pretty salt water tolerant but, like me, doesn't care for the real thing!
So I guess we'd best get into training.No, shrimps it is... Its a species of amphipod shrimp, which are the little half moon shaped shrimps you will see in freshwater, on the beach hopping round in seaweed and in streams. However this particular species http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/ansrp/dik ... llosus.pdf has apparrently been spreading from the east (red peril? was it a communist plot - maybe they were genetically engineered by the Soviet Union) and is a very effective predator which has wiped out native species of gammarus in the Rhine...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX2Ief4kjrI&feature=fvw