A review of the ever increasing threat to European crayfish from non-indigenous crayfish species

By David Holdich, J. Reynolds, C. Souty‐Grosset, P. Sibley. 2009

557 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Non-indigenous crayfish species (NICS) in Europe now outnumber indigenous crayfish species (ICS) 2:1, and it has been predicted that they may dominate completely in the next few decades unless something is done to protect them. Of the ten NICS introduced at least nine have become established in areas occupied by four of the five ICS. A decline in stocks of ICS has been recorded in many countries in the face of increasing populations of NICS. Most European countries retain at least one ICS but all are under threat from habitat loss, deteriorating water quality, overfishing, climate change, and most importantly from NICS and crayfish plague. The threat to ICS is so great in some countries that “ark”sanctuary sites are being established.The three most widely-spread NICS are the North American species: Pacifastacus leniusculus , Orconectes limosus and Procambarus clarkii . These can be considered as “Old NICS”, which were introduced before 1975, compared with the “New NICS”, which were introduced after 1980, such as the North American species: Orconectes immunis , Orconectes juvenilis , Orconectes virilis , Procambarus sp. and Procambarus acutus ; and the Australian species: Cherax destructor and Cherax quadricarinatus , all of which have much narrower ranges in Europe. The North American species are potentially capable of acting as vectors of crayfish plague. Outbreaks of this disease occur regularly where there are high concentrations of vectors.In addition to the NICS currently established in the wild, a further threat exists through the aquarium trade, where many American and Australian species are available via the internet and in aquarist centres. Owners of such species may discard them into the freshwater environment when they grow too big as with some Cherax spp. and Orconectes spp., or multiply too frequently as with Procambarus sp. (a parthenogenetic species). A conceptual model is presented as a possible way forward for protecting the future survival of ICS in Europe.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5f718fa67f998714854ade0bc409736ed72360f0

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Citations in the corpus

The enigmatic Marmorkrebs (marbled crayfish) is the parthenogenetic form of Procambarus fallax (Hagen, 1870) (2010, background): “…has been spreading over the globe, ostensibly via the aquarium trade and specimens have been found in the wild in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, and Madagascar ( e.g. Holdich et al. , 2009; Jones et al. , 2009; Kawai et al. , 2009; Martin et al. , 2010; Kawai and Takahata, 2010) (Table 1).”
Ecological roles of crayfish in freshwater and terrestrial habitats (2013, background): “In Europe, where this has been well studied (see Reynolds and Souty-Grosset 2012), there are now at least ten non-indigenous crayfish species (NICS) in the wild (Holdich et al. 2009).”
Invaders for sale: trade and determinants of introduction of ornamental freshwater crayfish (2012, background): “quadricarinatus are also believed to originate from aquarium releases (Stucki and Jean-Richard 1999; Pekny 2003; Holdich et al. 2009; Schulz et al. 2009), and both species were classified as introduced from aquaria.”
A review of ecological interactions between crayfish and fish, indigenous and introduced (2011, unknown): “…Europe (New NICS of Holdich et al., 2009b) currently includes five North American species – Procambarus sp. (the parthogenetic marmorkrebs), Orconectes immunis, O. virilis, O. rusticus and O. juvenilis, and two Australian species, Cherax destructor and C. quadricarinatus (Holdich et al., 2009b).”
Red swamp crayfish: biology, ecology and invasion - an overview (2015, background): “By far, the most known and studied pathogen of P. clarkii is the the parasitic Oomycete Aphanomyces astaci, the causative agent of crayfish plague, which is lethal to many species of crayfish (Alderman and Polglase, 1988; Holdich et al., 2009).”
Continental-wide distribution of crayfish species in Europe: update and maps (2014, methodology): “Some of these changes that became known since the publication of the Atlas were reflected in the comprehensive review by Holdich et al. (2009), which nevertheless re-used the original 2006 maps.”
Assessing the environmental requirements of invaders using ensembles of distribution models (2011, background): “Holdich et al. (2009) provided the most up-to-date description of distributional data for crayfish in Europe.”