Search results for "signal crayfish"

Introduced alien signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) in Finland : uncontrollable expansion despite numerous crayfisheries strategies

2018

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…

Diet and trophic niche of the invasive signal crayfish in the first invaded Italian stream ecosystem.

2021

The occurrence of the signal crayfsh Pacifastacus leniusculus in the Valla Stream was the frst established population of this invasive species recorded in an Italian stream ecosystem. We evaluated the seasonality of diet and trophic niche of invasive signal crayfsh in order to estimate the ecological role and efects on native communities of the stream ecosystem. We studied the diferences in food source use between sexes, life stages and seasons using carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analyses. To supplement stable isotope analyses, we evaluated food source usage using traditional stomach content analysis. We tested the hypothesis that juveniles have a diferent diet, showing diferent trophi…

Are the effects of an invasive crayfish on lake littoral macroinvertebrate communities consistent over time?

2016

Management of invasive species requires assessment of their effects on recipient ecosystems. However, impact assessment of invasive species commonly lacks a long-term perspective which can potentially lead to false conclusions. We examined the effects of the invasive signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus Dana) on the stony littoral macroinvertebrate communities of a large boreal lake and assessed the extent to which the patterns observed in previous short-term studies were stable over time. We used temporal macroinvertebrate data collected in five consecutive years from a site with a well-established crayfish population, a site with no crayfish and a site where crayfish had been recentl…

Comparing the effects of introduced signal crayfish and native noble crayfish on the littoral invertebrate assemblages of boreal lakes

2015

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…

An invasive species may be better than none: invasive signal and native noble crayfish have similar community effects

2014

14 pages; International audience; Human activities have resulted in the decline of native crayfish and promoted the spread of invasive crayfish species in European fresh waters, threatening ecosystem structure and functioning. We compared effects of native noble crayfish (Astacus astacus), invasive signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) and of the absence of crayfish on leaf litter breakdown and invertebrate prey density and biomass in stream ecosystems. In microcosm experiments, invertebrate shredder density was significantly reduced by crayfish presence but similarly affected by the two crayfish species. While crayfish did not directly influence leaf litter breakdown, their presence r…

Indirect effects of invasive crayfish on native fish parasites

2013

Interactions between invasive and native species are often modified by parasites. One little-studied scenario is that invasive species affect parasite transmission to native hosts by altering the relative abundance of hosts needed in parasite life cycles, for example by predation on these hosts. Here we show that presence of an invasive crayfish species, Pacifastacus leniusculus, decreases the mean abundance of native parasites transmitted from snails and aquatic isopods to perch, Perca fluviatilis, in two large boreal lakes in Finland. In contrast, parasites transmitted to the fish from planktonic copepods or mussels, hosts not readily preyed on by crayfish, were not affected by crayfish p…

Effects of an invasive crayfish on the littoral macroinvertebrates of large boreal lakes are habitat specific

2013

Summary Invasive crayfish are widely acknowledged to have negative effects on benthic food webs in lakes, but few studies have investigated such effects at wider spatial scales and in varying habitats under natural conditions. We examined the effects of introduced signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) on the macroinvertebrate assemblages of different habitats in two large boreal lakes. We evaluated whether the density, taxon richness and species composition are altered by the non-native crayfish and whether the responses are similar for stony and vegetated habitats and across a depth gradient. We also studied the influence of crayfish on periphyton biomass at stony sites, as a potentia…

The introduced signal crayfish and native noble crayfish have different effects on sublittoral macroinvertebrate assemblages in boreal lakes

2015

A comparison of the impacts of introduced signal crayfish and native noble crayfish in boreal lake ecosystems

2014

Predation by signal crayfishPacifastacus leniusculuson fish eggs and its consequences for coregonid recruitment

2015

The character and magnitude of predation by the invasive, ectothermic Pacifastacus leniusculus, a crayfish widely introduced to Europe and Japan from North America, on the eggs of coregonid fishes, vendace Coregonus albula and whitefish Coregonus lavaretus were examined by experimentation, modelling and field data. The present results showed that P. leniusculus has the potential to be very efficient predator of fish eggs under winter conditions, but the predation by P. leniusculus did not significantly decrease production of coregonid larvae during the years with a high P. leniusculus population in the study lake. Hence, the mortality caused by the novel invertebrate predator appeared to co…