A plague, carried by invasive species originally from North America, has long decimated populations of Europe’s noble crayfish (Astacus astacus) — now listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Recent discoveries of noble crayfish resisting less virulent strains of the plague, however, have given scientists hope that the species may, in time, weather this pathogenic storm.
Don’t celebrate just yet. The resistance also prompts questions of how the noble crayfish might fare against its invasive crayfish counterparts if the impact of the devastating plague is eventually neutralized. Could the invasives outmuscle the native species?
Naturally, in the search for answers, researchers staged a faceoff between A.astacus and two invasive species: the spiny-cheek crayfish (Faxonius limosus) and the white river crayfish (Procambarus acutus). By tracking which crayfish started a fight and logging wins and retreats, the researchers found that mature noble crayfish can indeed hold their own against these two ...
