EARLY HEARING DETECTION AND INTERVENTION VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
MARCH 2-5, 2021

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6/07/2017 | 10:00 AM - 10:15 AM | DENSITY DEPENDENT EFFECTS OF INVASIVE CRAYFISH ON NATIVE CRAYFISH: INSIGHTS FROM MESOCOSM EXPERIMENTS | 305A

DENSITY DEPENDENT EFFECTS OF INVASIVE CRAYFISH ON NATIVE CRAYFISH: INSIGHTS FROM MESOCOSM EXPERIMENTS

The invasive virile crayfish (Orconectes virilis) is one of three invasive crayfish in Virginia, and may pose serious threats to native crayfish. Previous laboratory experiments showed that invasive virile crayfish could significantly reduce the survival of native Piedmont crayfish (Cambarus sp. C). However, it is hard to replicate natural conditions under laboratory settings due to the complexity of ecological interactions. We conducted field mesocosm experiments using 1250L tanks to find how different densities of invasive virile crayfish affect native Piedmont crayfish populations. After 43 days, we did not find significant differences of survival rates of crayfish among treatments (p = 0.446). We found significant differences of biomass change among treatments (p < 0.001) and between native and invasive crayfish (p < 0.01). Invasive crayfish grew much faster compared to native crayfish in allopatry. However, invasive crayfish growth was decreased when in sympatry with native species, probably due to competitive interactions. Additionally, native crayfish growth was decreased under high invasive crayfish density. Overall, this experiment suggests that invasive virile crayfish grow much faster than native Piedmont crayfish, and could negatively impact native crayfish growth in high density.

C26 Invasive Species
C11 Community Ecology
S12 Challenges, insights, and opportunities in crayfish conservation and ecology

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Presenters/Authors

Sujan Henkanaththegedara (), Longwood University, sujan040@gmail.com;