Integ. Essay No.

3 – Andrea Morales

The author and the lecture are both about the invasion of the zebra mussel and the impact on
the fish population. The author believes that the mussel has been spreading out from its
original habitat to North America. The lecturer challenges this statement of the author. He
thinks that there are ways to control the zebra mussel spread and it is not a serious problem
for the fish population.

First of all, the author says that the invasion of the zebra might be unstoppable. It is mentioned
that is easy to spread out along new canals in waterways. The lecturer cast doubt this by the
way that salt water will kill the zebra mussel.

Secondly, the author states that zebra mussel dominates new habitats and have no predators.
The lecturer, however, rebuts this by saying that the mussel could have had no predators at
the beginning but then started appearing predators which changed habits and started feeding
from the mussel. He made the example about the birds, which were feeding a lot form the
mussel.

Finally, the author mentioned that the zebra mussel can decline the fish population. The
lecturer, on the other hand, says that maybe the domination of the zebra could have had a
negative impact but also had a positive impact on some species. He is from the idea that
bottom plankton feed the fish population so that fishes could reproduce and, therefore there
was an increase on the population.

 Total word count: 243 words

 Excellent introduction
 Body paragraph 1 is incomplete / lacks facts and details
 Word order mistakes
 Misused words and expressions
 You lack details in the part of the lecture which are the most
important ones
 You are using and combining both ideas well