0000000000190957
AUTHOR
Esa Erkamo
Introduced alien signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) in Finland : uncontrollable expansion despite numerous crayfisheries strategies
In Finland, massive signal crayfish introductions started towards the end of 1980s, with an estimated total of 2.2 million signal crayfish been stocked before year 2016. During that period, Finnish fisheries authorities have implemented three national management strategies setting guidelines for the crayfish introductions. The main aims of the strategies have been conservation of native noble crayfish stocks and a controlled spreading of the alien signal crayfish within a designated region. In this study, we report the current distribution of signal crayfish in Finland in comparison to the guidelines set in these three national strategies. The present distribution area of the signal crayfis…
Comparing the effects of introduced signal crayfish and native noble crayfish on the littoral invertebrate assemblages of boreal lakes
The introduced North American signal crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus (Dana) has replaced the native noble crayfish (Astacus astacus) in many European freshwaters and can be considered a new component of these ecosystems. The 2 species are apparently similar in many respects, but their ecological equivalence is uncertain and has been little investigated, especially at the whole-lake scale. We compared the effects of the 2 species on the abundance, species richness, and composition of littoral macroinvertebrate assemblages in a set of small- and mediumsized boreal lakes, which included 8 lakes with noble crayfish, 8 lakes with signal crayfish, and 8 lakes without crayfish. We collected semi…