New research suggests Asian carp could thrive in Lake Michigan

CHICAGO - As Asian carp have stormed up the Illinois River in the past several decades, looming precariously close to Lake Michigan, scientists have been forced to ponder an alarming question: What if the invasive species actually breached the world's fifth-largest lake?

Many fishery managers have already resigned themselves to the fact that bighead and silver carp, the two most-feared species of Asian carp, may never be eradicated from Illinois waterways, as a single female can lay over 1 million eggs each year. These insatiable fish have proved capable of eating 120% of their body weight in a day, mostly microscopic plankton - the base of the aquatic food chain. In doing so, they deprive other fish while growing to as much as 100 pounds by adulthood, much too large for any native predator to feed on them.

However, since the 1990s, invasive zebra and quagga mussels have devoured so much of Lake Michigan's plankton