Functional traits explain crayfish invasive success in the Netherlands

Long-term changes in the prevalence of the crayfish plague pathogen and its genotyping in invasive crayfish species in Czechia

The widespread presence of North American alien crayfish in Europe is a major driver of native crayfish population declines, mainly because they are chronic carriers of the oomycete Aphanomyces astaci responsible for crayfish plague. Screening for the crayfish plague pathogen in host populations has become a common practice across Europe, but sampling usually covers spatial but not temporal variation. Our study focuses on the current situation in Czechia, where screening for A. astaci was first conducted in the mid-2000s. We provide data about the distribution and prevalence of this pathogen at almost 50 sites with three host crayfish: the spiny-cheek crayfish Faxonius limosus, signal crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus, and marbled crayfish Procambarus virginalis. Among these sites were 20 localities that were resampled several years (usually more than a decade) after the original screening for A. astaci. We did not detect any A. astaci infection in two studied P. virginalis populations but documented several new hotspots of highly infected P. leniusculus in Czechia, and the first site with the coexistence of the latter with F. limosus. Our data suggest that despite some fluctuations, A. astaci prevalence in North American host populations generally does not tend to change significantly over time; we only observed two cases of a significant increase and one of a significant decrease. We no longer detected A. astaci in several originally weakly infected populations, but our data suggest it likely still persists in these areas and threatens native crayfish populations. At the single known site in the country where P. leniusculus and F. limosus coexist, we documented the presence of the same A. astaci genotype group in both crayfish species, likely due to interspecific transmission of the pathogen from the former host to the latter. However, genotyping of A. astaci in infected host individuals still supported the link between specific pathogen genotypes and crayfish hosts, suggesting that assessment of sources of mass mortalities from the pathogen genotyping is feasible in European regions where the mutual contact of different American crayfish species is uncommon.

Native European crayfish Astacus astacus competitive in staged confrontation with the invasive crayfish Faxonius limosus and Procambarus acutus

The European native, noble crayfish (Astacus astacus) has suffered from a serious and long term population decline due to habitat destruction, water pollution and the impact of the invasive North American crayfish that are carriers of the crayfish plague (Aphanomyces astaci). The latter being the major factor currently confining noble crayfish to uninvaded (parts of) waterbodies. However, recently wild populations of apparently healthy noble crayfish carrying the crayfish plague have been found. As crayfish are known for their inter- and intraspecific agonistic behaviour which may be key for their competitive success, this raised the interesting question what would happen if the crayfish plague would not be a dominant factor anymore in the interaction between native and invasive species. Since the outcome of those encounters is still unclear, this study explores whether the noble crayfish can stand its ground towards invasive species in such agonistic interactions. Furthermore, the ability of the noble crayfish and invasive crayfish to acquire shelter through agonistic interaction is also assessed. Through pairwise staged interactions, agonistic behaviour and shelter competition between the native A. astacus and the invasive Faxonius limosus and Procambarus acutus were examined. The results showed that A. astacus triumphs over F. limosus and P. acutus in agonistic encounters and in competition for shelter. In turn, P. acutus dominates F. limosus in staged encounters and shelter. In possible future situations were crayfish plague does no longer eradicate noble crayfish populations, our results show that the native noble crayfish might still have a promising future when confronted with invasive species.