Meet the Great Lakes SmackDown! Terrestrial Terror invaders

By Alice Rossignol and Rachael Gleason for  Great Lakes Echo

In a contest modeled after the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament, Great Lakes Echo is  pitting 16 of the most formidable terrestrial invasive species against each other in “land brawls” and you can set up a bracket and fighter profiles. Welcome to the Great Lakes SmackDown! Terrestrial Terror.

Everyone from biologists, resource managers, invasive species experts to citizen  readers like you, can weigh in on each battle.

Fill out a bracket and find about the contenders, vote in polls and make sure you discuss and root for your favorite (or most disliked) contender.

Last year, eight aquatic invasives fought it out for the title of “most destructive.”

The quagga mussel, also known as the “The Quagmeister,” came out victorious against the sea lamprey by filter feeding at extreme velocities, hording toxins and being a general pain in the lake. The quagga is shown here ruining a boat propeller.

Which terrestrial invasive species do you think is the most ecologically destructive to the Great Lakes watershed?

Download everything you need here:

• Bracket (writable)
• Fighter profiles (to help make your choices read about the contenders in this document)

The competition starts on March 14 and make sure your brackets are in by Friday, March 18!

They may be exotic losers but that doesn’t mean they can’t be winners in the SmackDown!

Let’s brawl!

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© 2010, Great Lakes Echo, Michigan State University Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. Republish under these guidelines. Reporting supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.