Freshwater crayfish in Bosnia and Herzegovina: the first report on their distribution

Abstract

Key-words: crayfish, diversity, Bosnia and HerzegovinaThe aim of this research paper is to present available data on the distribution of freshwater crayfish in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including data from the literature and those of our own investigations. According to historical data, the existence of four native European species were reported within the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Astacus astacus (Linnaeus, 1758), A. leptodactylus (Eschscholtz, 1823), Austropotamobius torrentium (Schrank, 1803) and A. pallipes (Lereboullet, 1858). Our recent research has confirmed the presence of these four species. A. torrentium has been found in the tributaries of the rivers Bosna and Una, in ecologically similar habitats, that is, in relatively clean waters with a small amount of organic material (water quality category I or II). A. pallipes is predominantly present in the Neretva River basin, partly in the Una River basin and in the Cetina River basin, forming both river and lake populations (in the Boracko Lake are present in particularly large numbers) -waters with oxygen concentrations greater than 9 mg·L −1 and BOD5 values less than 2 mg·L −1 . A. astacus is present in a dense population in waters of the Drina River basin (as river and lake populations), but occurs also in the tributaries of the rivers Bosna (midstream) and Sava. So far, A. leptodactylus was found only at the two localities: Sava River (Brčko area) and Miljacka River (upstream of Sarajevo), in the waters quality of category II (beta-mesosaprobic). Allochthonous species have not been yet recorded in the freshwater habitats of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Continental-wide distribution of crayfish species in Europe: update and maps

“…As data from regions such as Romania (Pârvulescu and Zaharia, 2014), Russia, and Ukraine became more available, confirmed presence could be substantially widened. Some minor changes (confirmation of species presence) based on ongoing astacological research can be seen across other parts of its range as well (e.g., Groß et al, 2008;Simić et al, 2008;Trožić-Borovac, 2011). The presence of noble crayfish in the Lefkara dam, Cyprus (Stephanou, 1987) is also indicated.…”

“…data). Wider presence has been recently documented in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Trožić-Borovac, 2011). Although once widely distributed throughout Western and Southern Europe, white-clawed crayfish recently face a substantial pressure across its entire area.…”

“…Data overviewing and highlighting such changes may be of high importance for astacologists, freshwater ecologists, conservationists as well as invasion biologists. Losses of native crayfish populations as well as occurrence and spread of alien species have been often documented and predicted at the level of particular rivers and their tributaries (e.g., Ellis et al, 2012;Aklehnovich and Razlutskij, 2013;Sousa et al, 2013), administrative units (e.g., Groß et al, 2008;Boets et al, 2012) or countries (e.g., Trožić-Borovac, 2011;Pursiainen and Mattila, 2012;Simić et al, 2008). Distributions summarized at continental scale are, however, less frequent and vary in details (Holdich, 2002;Füreder, 2009).…”

“…In particular, the data was substantially lacking for many east European countries. Advances in astacological research since the publication of the Atlas allowed filling at least some of these gaps (e.g., Trožić-Borovac, 2011;Simić et al, 2008), and also led to re-assessment of species identity and diversity of some of the alien species present in European waters (e.g., Chucholl and Daudey, 2008;Filipová et al, 2011). Furthermore, expansion of invasive species was well documented for some regions e.g., Italy (Aquiloni et al, 2010) and Romania (Pârvulescu et al, 2009, and isolated populations of various recently introduced alien species were discovered in many European countries (e.g., Scalici et al, 2009;Jaklič and Vrezec, 2011;Chucholl et al, 2012).…”

Filling the blank spot: first report on the freshwater crayfish distribution in Albania

“…Likewise, the populations of some European crayfish species occurring in the Balkans were observed to exhibit higher genetic variation compared with the rest of Europe (Trontelj et al, 2005;Klobučar et al, 2013;Schrimpf et al, 2014), and hence forming genetically unique stocks of conservation importance on the continental scale. However, in contrast to most European countries, the detailed information on exact distribution of crayfish species in the Balkans is still scarce (Kouba et al, 2014) and has only been recently updated for some regions: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro (Simić et al, 2008;Maguire et al, 2011;Trožić-Borovac, 2011). However, although out of four European crayfish species present in the Balkan Peninsula, two were considered to occur in Albania: A. astacus and A. torrentium, to the best of our knowledge no studies on their distribution have been published (e.g., Holdich, 2002).…”