Marmorkrebs

Crayfiction

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Sometimes, a druid’s just got to catch some crayfish.

In this short story by Kevin Hearne, “A Test of Mettle,” druid initiate Granuaile MacTiernan is tasked with controlling invasive crayfish:

With Sonora’s guidance, sensed through the turquoise sphere at the base of my throat, I can feel the flow of water there, feel the gentle slowness under the rock, the place where a large crawdad has made its home. A crawdad from the Midwest that doesn’t belong on this side of the continental divide, an invasive species that’s been killing off the native fish by eating their eggs. Elementary school kids dumped them in here at the end of their crustacean unit, and their teachers, who should have known better, let them ravage an ecosystem in the process.

This story, and some others, is available for free from Kevin’s website. Thanks, Kevin, for bringing crayfish to art!

External links

Kevin Hearne: Short Stories
Kevin Hearne on Twitter

The Ecdysiast feature

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:23:00 +0000

The newest issue of The Crustacean Society’s newsletter, The Ecdysiast, is now available for viewing here. There are several articles of interest for readers. One is coverage of the SICB crayfish symposium that occurred in January It includes a note of the untimely death of Francesca Gherardi.

Also of interest are articles by Fred Schram, the general editor for the Journal of Crustacean Biology. In particular, “To be open or not to be open: That is the question” (page 7) is a look at open access from the perspective of someone in the thick of trying to maintain a journal in the face of a changing market, which includes declining Society membership.

Is OA the wave of the future? – maybe. However, we might suggest that “efficient” application of the OA model will lead to the collapse of many journals, especially those produced by small scholarly societies.

(Plug: If you are interested in crustacean biology, you should join the Society!)

“Your heart stops”: Marmorkrebs in Scotland

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Scotsman.com reports on the seizure of Marmorkrebs in the Central Belt.

Dr Colin Bean, science and policy advisor on freshwater biology at Scottish Natural Heritage, formally identified the recovered species in the current case.

He said: “Your heart stops really because American signal are bad enough. The biggest difference between marbled crayfish and other crayfish species is that the others need a male and a female to reproduce, but marbled crayfish are parthenogenic [reproduce asexually] which means you only need one to establish a population.

Yet again, these were Marmorkrebs sold through the pet trade. Kudos to the Scots for taking the task of monitoring exotics seriously:

Anyone caught in possession of non-native crayfish in Scotland can be jailed for up to six months and fined £40,000.

Some species distribution models suggest Scotland could be suitable habitat for Marmorkrebs. At right is an excerpt from Figure 3D in Feria and Faulkes (2011). There are three other models in that figure, and the other three predict much less habitat. Given the number of Marmorkrebs found in Europe since that paper was prepared, though, this version is probably the better reflection of the possible suitable habitat than the others.

Lastly, I appreciate that the news article carries on the European tabloid tradition of referring to small crayfish with monster movie descriptions, calling Marmorkrebs:

A voracious alien predator

Well, most crayfish do catch and eat other animals... but predator? Not what you would usually use to describe an omnivore that eats snails and other small benthic invertebrates.

External link

Scots wildlife at risk from alien crayfish breeds

Reference

Feria TP, Faulkes Z. 2011. Forecasting the distribution of Marmorkrebs, a parthenogenetic crayfish with high invasive potential, in Madagascar, Europe, and North America. Aquatic Invasions 6(1): 55-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.3391/ai.2011.6.1.07

A third parthenogenetic crayfish species?

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:30:00 +0000

Probably not. This passage in a new paper by Rogowski and colleagues about the virile crayfish (Orconectes virilis; right) is interesting, however:

An interesting observation in the laboratory was the production of eggs and juveniles by a female that was collected in July and kept in isolation. This would suggest that females can maintain viable sperm for an extended period, potentially over 1 year (Reynolds, 2002), or that they will produce viable eggs even if they are not fertilised. Other crayfish have been known to reproduce clonally, for example Orconectes limosus (Buřič et al., 2011) and the marbled crayfish Procambarus fallax (Scholtz et al., 2003). Whether this individual maintained sperm from a previous mating or whether it was parthenogenetic is unknown.

If I were to bet, I would bet on sperm storage, which so many arthropods can do. While the evidence for Orconectes limosus being a facultative parthenogen is quite solid, even that has yet to be replicated. Either way, there seems to be much more work necessary to distinguish these two scenarios.

Reference

Rogowski DL, Sitko S, Bonar SA. Optimising control of invasive crayfish using life-history information. Freshwater Biology. in press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/fwb.12126

Calming

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Faulkes, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:03:00 +0000

Faulkes Z. 2012. How much is that crayfish in the window? Online monitoring of Marmorkrebs, Procambarus fallax f. virginalis (Hagen, 1870) in the North American pet trade. Freshwater Crayfish 19(1): 39-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.5869/fc.2013.v19.039

Abstract

Marmorkrebs were discovered by European pet owners in the 1990s. Because there is no known native population of Marmorkrebs, the distribution of these crayfish is purely the result of human activity. Marmorkrebs are now spread throughout the pet trade worldwide and are introduced species in several countries. Given that the pet trade has been the suspected or confirmed source of introduction of many introduced species, I monitored online social activity for information about the use and spread of Marmorkrebs in North America. This revealed several new jurisdictions where Marmorkrebs had not been previously reported. Several records were found in jurisdictions where the local laws prohibited the owners from having Marmorkrebs. Tracking such records could be useful in determining the risk of Marmorkrebs introductions from release by pet owners.

Keywords: marbled crayfish • pet trade

Remembering Francesca Gherardi

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 20:29:00 +0000

Oh, no.

Sad news indeed on the CRUST-L email list:

Dear friends,

we sadly have to inform you that yesterday our dear friend and colleague Francesca Gherardi passed away.

It was only weeks ago that I met Dr. Gherardi for the first time at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting, where she was a speaker at the special session on crayfish. She was having terrible problems with her throat. She could barely whisper, but this did not diminish her presentation, once she got her hands on the microphone.

I caught a few pictures of her from the session; here is one.

She was a fine scientist, and will be much missed.

“Most curious creature, Captain...”

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:00:00 +0000

I have to thank Nicole Gugliucci. Over the weekend, I was participating a a Google Plus hangout with Nicole and a few other people, describing some of the research I’ve been doing on the pet trade in Marmorkrebs. I made a comment like, “If you have Marmorkrebs as a pet, you always end up with surplus, because you can’t stop them from reproducing.”

And Nicole said, “They’re like tribbles.”

I was stunned. Marmorkrebs are totally like tribbles! How could I not have realized this before?

Dr. McCoy: [on reasons for the tribbles' high reproduction rate] Well, the nearest thing I can figure out is that they're born pregnant. Which seems to be quite a time saver.

Indeed, the original episode, “The Trouble With Tribbles,” contains this bit of dialogue that could be applied to any number of invasive species:

Spock: Surely you must have realized what would happen if you removed the tribbles from their predator-filled environment into an environment where their natural multiplicative proclivities would have no restraining factors.
Cyrano Jones: [all in one breath] Well, of cour... What did you say?
Spock: [irritated but patient] By removing the tribbles from their natural habitat, you have, so to speak, removed the cork from the bottle and allowed the genie to escape.

I am so going to use this comparison in a talk

Shen and colleagues, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:34:00 +0000

Shen H, Braband A, Scholtz G. 2013. Mitogenomic analysis of decapod crustacean phylogeny corroborates traditional views on their relationships. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 66(3): 776-789.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2012.11.002

Abstract

Phylogenetic relationships within decapod crustaceans are highly controversial. Even recent analyses based on molecular datasets have shown largely contradictory results. Previous studies using mitochondrial genomes are promising but suffer from a poor and unbalanced taxon sampling. To fill these gaps we sequenced the (nearly) complete mitochondrial genomes of 13 decapod species: Stenopus hispidus, Polycheles typhlops, Panulirus versicolor, Scyllarides latus, Enoplometopus occidentalis, Homarus gammarus, Procambarus fallax f. virginalis, Upogebia major, Neaxius acanthus, Calocaris macandreae, Corallianassa coutierei, Cryptolithodes sitchensis, Neopetrolisthes maculatus, and add that of Dromia personata. Our new data allow for comprehensive analyses of decapod phylogeny using the mitochondrial genomes of 50 species covering all major taxa of the Decapoda. Five species of Stomatopoda and one species of Euphausiacea serve as outgroups. Most of our analyses using Maximum Likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) of nucleotide and amino acid datasets revealed congruent topologies for higher level decapod relationships: (((((((Anomala, Brachyura), Thalassinida: Gebiidea), Thalassinida: Axiidea), (Astacidea, Polychelida), Achelata), Stenopodidea), Caridea), Dendrobranchiata). This result corroborates several traditional morphological views and adds new perspectives. In particular, the position of Polychelida is surprising. Nevertheless, some problems can be identified. In a minority of analyses the basal branching of Reptantia is not fully resolved, Thalassinida are monophyletic; Polychelida are the sister group to Achelata, and Stenopodidea are resolved as sister group to Caridea. Despite this and although some nodal supports are low in our phylogenetic trees, we think that the largely stable topology of the trees regardless of different types of analyses suggests that mitochondrial genomes show good potential to resolve the relationship within Decapoda.

Keywords: mitochondrial genomes • Reptantia • Thalassinidans • Aliscore

Soedarini and colleagues, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Soedarini B, Klaver L, Giesen D, Roessink I, Widianarko B, van Straalen NM, van Gestel CAM. 2013. Effect of copper exposure on histamine concentrations in the marbled crayfish (Procambarus fallax forma virginalis). Animal Biology 63(2): 139–147. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15707563-00002401

Abstract

Crustaceans can store excess copper in the hepatopancreas, an organ playing a role in digestive activity as well as in neurosecretory control. Here, we studied the effect of copper exposure on the level of histamine, an indicator of food spoilage in edible crustaceans. Histamine is also a neuromodulator in the intestinal nervous system of crustaceans, and a human allergen. Marbled crayfish (Procambarus fallax forma virginalis) were exposed to average measured values of 0.031 mg Cu/l and 0.38 mg Cu/l, respectively, for 14 days and then transferred to copper-free water for another 14 days. Concentrations of copper and histamine in the hepatopancreas and muscle were evaluated at different time points. Histamine levels were significantly higher in hepatopancreas and muscle tissues at the highest exposure level, but only after transfer of the animals to copper-free water. The increased histamine concentration following copper exposure may be explained by a (delayed) stress response, and by up-regulated histidine synthesis induced by copper, followed by decarboxylation to histamine.

Keywords: copper • hepatopancreas • histamine • intestinal nervous system • neuromodulator

Updated map of introductions

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 16:12:00 +0000

Just wanted to post that the map of Marmorkrebs introductions has just been given a big update. In particular, it now includes all the locations listed in Chucholl et al. (2012). The map is not identical to Table 1 in that paper, however. The table only includes locations where there were either pictures of crayfish or voucher specimens to confirm the identification; my map includes some without those.

I’ve also used different placemarkers to distinguish locations with populations (dot in the middle of the placemarker) and those where there are single specimens, or the status is unclear (no dot).

Reference

Chucholl C, Morawetz K, Groß H. 2012. The clones are coming – strong increase in Marmorkrebs [Procambarus fallax (Hagen, 1870) f. virginalis] records from Europe. Aquatic Invasions 7: 511-519.

Vogt, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:22:00 +0000

Vogt G. 2013. Abbreviation of larval development and extension of brood care as key features of the evolution of freshwater Decapoda. Biological Reviews 88(1): 81-116. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-185X.2012.00241.x

Abstract

The transition from marine to freshwater habitats is one of the major steps in the evolution of life. In the decapod crustaceans, four groups have colonized fresh water at different geological times since the Triassic, the freshwater shrimps, freshwater crayfish, freshwater crabs and freshwater anomurans. Some families have even colonized terrestrial habitats via the freshwater route or directly via the sea shore. Since none of these taxa has ever reinvaded its environment of origin the Decapoda appear particularly suitable to investigate life-history adaptations to fresh water. Evolutionary comparison of marine, freshwater and terrestrial decapods suggests that the reduction of egg number, abbreviation of larval development, extension of brood care and lecithotrophy of the first posthatching life stages are key adaptations to fresh water. Marine decapods usually have high numbers of small eggs and develop through a prolonged planktonic larval cycle, whereas the production of small numbers of large eggs, direct development and extended brood care until the juvenile stage is the rule in freshwater crayfish, primary freshwater crabs and aeglid anomurans. The amphidromous freshwater shrimp and freshwater crab species and all terrestrial decapods that invaded land via the sea shore have retained ocean-type planktonic development. Abbreviation of larval development and extension of brood care are interpreted as adaptations to the particularly strong variations of hydrodynamic parameters, physico-chemical factors and phytoplankton availability in freshwater habitats. These life-history changes increase fitness of the offspring and are obviously favoured by natural selection, explaining their multiple origins in fresh water. There is no evidence for their early evolution in the marine ancestors of the extant freshwater groups and a preadaptive role for the conquest of fresh water. The costs of the shift from relative r- to K-strategy in freshwater decapods are traded-off against fecundity, future reproduction and growth of females and perhaps against size of species but not against longevity of species. Direct development and extension of brood care is associated with the reduction of dispersal and gene flow among populations, which may explain the high degree of speciation and endemism in directly developing freshwater decapods. Direct development and extended brood care also favour the evolution of social systems, which in freshwater decapods range from simple subsocial organization to eusociality. Hermaphroditism and parthenogenesis, which have evolved in some terrestrial crayfish burrowers and invasive open water crayfish, respectively, may enable populations to adapt to restrictive or new environments by spatio-temporal alteration of their socio-ecological characteristics. Under conditions of rapid habitat loss, environmental pollution and global warming, the reduced dispersal ability of direct developers may turn into a severe disadvantage, posing a higher threat of extinction to freshwater crayfish, primary freshwater crabs, aeglids and landlocked freshwater shrimps as compared to amphidromous freshwater shrimps and secondary freshwater crabs.

Keywords: marine-freshwater transition • Crustacea • life-history • development • parental care • trade-off • speciation • social systems • extinction threat

SICB 2013 special session on crayfish

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:05:00 +0000

The special session on crayfish biology at SICB may well have been one of the busiest days for Marmorkrebs news and announcements in a long while. There were at least three major pieces of new information about our favourite crustacean.

Polyploidy

Peer Martin provided evidence that Marmorkrebs are triploid. This is an important step forward in understanding the original of asexual reproduction in this species. This strongly suggests that this may have been a "one off" chance event, either through some sort of incomplete separation of chromosomes or duplication of chromosomes, or hybridization.

Crayfish plague

As part of Peer Martin's talk, he discussed whether Marmorkrebs are "the perfect invader" as they were so memorably called. He included a discussion about the importance of crayfish plague as an issue in the invasive potential for Marmorkrebs. In the questions, I asked whether anyone had actually tested whether Marmorkrebs carry the plague, or whether it was simply assumed they were resistance, because essentially all North American species are. There is apparently one doctoral thesis that reports a Marmorkrebs carrying crayfish plague. That said, many in the lab, and one wild-caught animal, have tested for the disease.

More introductions in the wild

Chris Chucholl reported that there are now six confirmed populations in Europe, five of which are in Germany. During my talk, I reported the "breaking news bulletin" that I'd blogged while waiting in line at Starbuck's for a croissant that Marmorkrebs had been found in Sweden. Tadashi Kawai mentioned that a population had been found in Sapporo, but that it apparently died out.

Other highlights

Marmorkrebs was not the only only game in town in this session, however.

Tonio Garza de YTa discussed his experiences over a decade in working with farmers to develop sustainable, productive, profitable aquaculture for red-clawed crayfish in Mexico. The lessons he had were to develop the market first. There is no point in producing food nobody will buy. Secondly, make sure your product does not give itself away. The red-clawed crayfish got away from their cultured ponds and successfully established populations, which could be harvested more cheaply than the aquacultured crayfish.

Francesca Gherhardi talked about the importance of understanding behaviour of potentially invasive species. To give just one example, she examined the interaction between temperature and fighting between different invasive crayfish species. Spinycheek crayfish (Orconectes limosus) become more less active and more likely to seek shelter as temperatures increase. Signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) become less competitive as water warms. Red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) change their aggressive behaviour very little, meaning swamp crayfish are poised to be the winners as temperatures warm under climate change.

Incidentally, my sympathy goes to Francesca, who was having quite severe voice problems. She had to whisper her whole talk. This worked to her advantage, as it gave her presentation an urgent, conspiratorial tone

Keith Crandall talked somewhat about some new research he is co-authoring on crayfish relationships, but much of his talk was geared to discussing tree of life projects, IN particular, I'm excited about opentreeoflife.org. Most taxonomic papers now are published as PDFs, which are great to look at, but hard to re-use any data in them.

The goals of the Open Tree of Life project are, in part, things near and dear to much of the online science community. They want to encourage refinement of the tree, annotation, and promote a culture of data sharing, not simply publication. Currently, people are as consistent about putting things into Treebase or Dryad as they are into GenBank.

Oh yes, and they want to assemble a complete tree of life in three years. Keith mentioned that the National Science Foundation has been supporting various tree of life related projects for about a decade now, and are getting quite eager to see a tree. This project will make it easier to identify holes in the existing tree.

A great session marred only by the fact that I had to run to catch my plane, and couldn’t stay and chat more with the other speakers! Much thanks to Tadashi Kawai for organizing the session!

First record of Marmorkrebs in Sweden

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:11:00 +0000

I am preparing for today's crayfish special session at SICB, but this is too imporatant not to share immediately: marbled crayfish found in the wild in Sweden.

I will try to discover more details soon.

Update, 8 January 2013:

I have found the original press release from 5 December 2012. It describes the find of Marmorkrebs in the river “a few weeks ago,” so about November. That there are “several sizes” is suggestive of a population, but does not confirm it.

The map of Marmorkrebs introductions has been updated accordingly.

2012 was an average year for Marmorkrebs research

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 07:00:00 +0000

After the boom of 2010 and the bust of 2011, Marmorkrebs research publications are back on a more even keel this year...

That’s not including Chucholl, 2013, which, despite an official 2013 publication date, was published in December.

2013 shall start with a bang, with the crayfish symposium at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in San Francisco in mere days!

The parthenogenesis slideshow

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 20:19:00 +0000

The Science Now blog, part of Science magazine, has a nice slideshow of animals that undergo parthenogenesis. Marmorkrebs appear as entry number five out of eight. The caption reads:

The parthenogenetic form of the North American crayfish Procambarus fallax, marmorkrebs are a popular aquarium pet. Their capacity for virgin birth was first discovered in Germany in 2003, when aquarium owners noticed that crayfish housed alone were laying eggs that developed into healthy adults. Genetic analysis and laboratory experiments confirmed that the animals were reproducing through parthenogenesis. Ecologists worry that their accidental release into the wild could seriously harm native crayfish, because a single individual can start a self-sustaining population, leading some states to prohibit their ownership.

“Some states” is currently a bit of an overestimate, since that number is, as far as I know, one.

Check out the other seven entries here.

Chucholl, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:14:00 +0000

Chucholl C. 2013. Invaders for sale: trade and determinants of introduction of ornamental freshwater crayfish. Biological Invasions 15(1): 125-141. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10530-012-0273-2

Abstract

The trade of live ornamental freshwater crayfish has grown rapidly in the last decade and has become the major pathway for new non-indigenous crayfish species (NICS) introductions into Europe. Here, I report on the German ornamental crayfish trade, the main importer of non-indigenous crayfish into Europe. In total, 120 NICS have been available as ornamental aquarium species. One hundred and five species originate from North or Central America and are, therefore, suspected to be crayfish plague vectors. The import rate since 2005 was estimated to be seven new species per year. Despite many species being imported, only eleven species were found to be very common in the trade. In 2009, 16 online shops offered at least 37 NICS. The availability, price, and size of the offered species were used to predict their introduction status. Multiple binary logistic regression analysis showed that species’ availability and size were the principal predictors of the likelihood of being recorded as introduced from aquaria. NICS introduced from aquaria were found to be more available and larger than those present only in aquaria, and their potential invasiveness was also higher. The findings are consistent with the propagule pressure hypothesis in that a greater availability is likely related to more release events, and large species may be released more frequently as a result of overpopulating or outgrowing their aquaria. Efforts to mitigate the risk of further harmful crayfish introductions from aquaria should aim to drastically reduce the availability of high-risk species.

Keywords: live animal trade • introduction pathway • alien crayfish • aquarium discards

I’d read that

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Oddly soothing

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 13:00:00 +0000

#SciFund recovery

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:23:00 +0000

“Dream come true” sounds too hokey. “I love it when a plan comes together” sounds too smug.

It was a long week of hard work, much of it hard physical labour, with a lot of mistakes and frustrations. By the end of it, I felt like this:

Ready for it to be over.

But I achieved everything I set out to achieve... in miniature. This is in line with the spirit of #SciFund, since #SciFund was a miniature grant.

I set out for crayfish, and I got crayfish:

I got small animals, little tiny hatchlings. These are going to have to grow for a while before they’re any good to me.

I set out for sand crabs, and I got sand crabs:

I got a small number of animals, less than the number of my fingers. I have enough for to be useful for at least one project.

All the way through the trip I was very aware that this was possible because of the generosity of people who donated to #SciFund. I was frequently updating a blog I created for supporters, and journaling the expedition for an audience made the trip a little less isolating.

Would I have liked to have had a few more data points, the important thing was that I did not come away empty handed. It was wonderful to be out in the field, trying to tackle problems and do things that I had been thinking about for a couple of years. Now I will have to spend a few more months thinking and working before I know what to do next.

(Crossposted from NeuroDojo.)

#SciFund update

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I swear to you, this is purely coincidence.

It is purely coincidence that today:

I am getting on a plane to Florida on a crustacean collecting trip powered by #SciFund support, and...
Round three of #SciFund launches!

It’s been a long time coming for my #SciFund expedition. Round 1 was about this time last year. Then, I was so focused on doing the project that I didn’t realize that the slough crayfish I wanted to collect were seasonal, and the best time to collect them was November.

I will be blogging about my #SciFund trip here, but only a little bit. My supporters from round 1 and 2 will be getting access to s special expedition blog, Amazons and Goliaths, where I will be blogging much more extensively and in a much different format than here.

I should also say that Kyle McLea, who had a Marmorkrebs project in Round 2 of #SciFund, recently got a whole lot of crayfish shipped to him. So his crowdfunded research is on a roll now, too.

As for round three of #SciFund, this is the first time I do not have a horse in this race, so to speak. But you should go to Rockethub and check out all the cool projects!

Chucholl and colleagues, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 14:57:00 +0000

Chucholl C, Morawetz K, Groß H. 2012. The clones are coming – strong increase in Marmorkrebs [Procambarus fallax (Hagen, 1870) f. virginalis] records from Europe. Aquatic Invasions 7(4): 511-519. http://dx.doi.org/10.3391/ai.2012.7.4.008

Abstract

We describe a new occurrence of parthenogenetic Marmorkrebs in southwestern Germany and give a synopsis of recent records of this species in Europe. Including the most recent records, 15 Marmorkrebs records are currently known, most of which are from Germany. At least six records represent established populations, which is an alarming increase beyond the one Marmorkrebs population known prior to 2010. Most established populations occur in lentic habitats near conurbations, typically in highly frequented secondary habitats, such as gravel pit lakes. In three instances, Marmorkrebs migrated over land, demonstrating their potential for active spread, and two invasive populations endanger indigenous crayfish populations. Most Marmorkrebs populations are large and are most likely several years old, suggesting a considerable lag between introduction and detection. Marmorkrebs populations in Europe are most likely the result of deliberate releases from aquaria, although secondary introductions may have occurred in one instance. Because Marmorkrebs are still widespread in the European pet trade, which most likely generates substantial propagule pressure, it is likely that the number of established populations will further increase over time. To mitigate the risk of further harmful crayfish releases, we suggest the prohibition of trading live high-risk crayfish species, including Marmorkrebs.

Keywords: aquarium introductions • marbled crayfish • invasiveness

Marmorkrebs on the road: SICB 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:00:00 +0000

The new newsletter of The Crustacean Society has this to say about the Society for INtegrative and Comparative Biology meeting in January:

TCS winter meeting / Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB)
January 3-7, 2013, San Francisco

The Crustacean Society winter meeting is held in conjunction with the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) and this year the meeting will take place from January 3-7, 2013 at the Hilton near Union Square in downtown San Francisco. Tadashi Kawai (co-editor of Biology of Freshwater Crayfish) will chair a special session on the Biology of Crayfish which features talks by Gerhard Scholtz, Zen Faulkes, Keith Crandall, Peer Martin, Christoph Chuchold, Antonio Garza de Yta, Teresa Feria, and Francesca Gherardi. The Special Session will take place on Monday January 7th from 8:00-12:00. The Special Session is being sponsored in part by TCS. Additionally there will be over 40 other talks and posters related to Crustacea. There are 12 diverse symposia and I would like to draw your attention to one symposium co-organized by Todd Oakley from the University of California Santa Barbara (Integrating Genomics with Comparative Vision Research of the Invertebrates) as there are multiple crustacean talks included. On a more social note, TCS in conjunction with the Division of Invertebrate Zoology and American Microscopical Society will host a social on Sunday January 6th in the evening from 6:15 until 9:15. The TCS business meeting will be concurrent with the social from 6:15-7:15. Last year it worked out well to grab a bit of food, attend the business meeting and then rejoin non TCS colleagues at the social. There will be the Libbie Hyman auction hosted by Division of Invertebrate Zoology also in conjunction with our social. Be prepared to bid on some exciting invertebrate treasures. We are very fortunate that Burke and Associates negotiated very reasonable room rates for San Francisco ($129/night) which is quite inexpensive for this city. There are plenty of reasons to attend this meeting in addition to the great science. Extend your visit to San Francisco and walk over the Golden Gate Bridge, visit China town, spend a day at the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park or browse the shelves at the City Lights Book Store in North Beach. Please plan on attending this year’s winter meeting and dropping by the TCS booth to say hello. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me (sltamone@uas.alaska.edu).

Sherry Tamone

SICB Liaison Officer

More Marmorkrebs meetings in San Francisco

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 12:27:00 +0000

There will be a special session on Marmorkrebs at the next Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting in San Francisco. It's not exactly a full blown regular symposium, so you won’t see it in the schedule yet. But it will be happening, and I will post more details as I learn them.

You can find more details about the meeting here.

Early registration for the meeting closes 3 December. You can still register after that, but then prices go up.

Finish that crayfish paper!

noreply@blogger.com (Zen Faulkes) — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:37:00 +0000

Jim Fetzner, the managing editor for the journal Freshwater Crayfish, recently sent an email indicating that they are hoping to publish the next volume, number 19, in December.

The deadline for submissions for the next volume is 1 October 2012.

As noted before, the International Association of Astacology is making efforts to get this journal published more frequently. I applaud this, as having the journal on such irregular schedule that people don’t know whether it’s a journal, or conference proceedings, or something else, does nobody much good. But the journal will only improve if they get submissions.