Laboratory based feeding behaviour of the Chinese mitten crab, Eriocheir sinensis (Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura: Varunidae): fish egg consumption (De Haan, 1835)

Abstract

Between 2005 and 2012, 61 marinas and harbours around the English coast were surveyed to record the occurrence of non-native species (NNS) of sessile invertebrates. From these surveys, geographic distributions are described for eight species of ascidians, six bryozoans and five other species. A mean of 6.7 sessile invertebrate NNS per site (range 0-13 species) was recorded. At the 43 sites on the English Channel coast, the mean was 7.8 NNS per site, and all of the ten English sites that had ≥ 10 NNS were in the western or central region of the Channel coast. Ritter and Forsyth, 1917, and Didemnum vexillum Kott, 2002; and the bryozoans Schizoporella japonica Ortmann, 1890 and Watersipora subatra (Ortmann, 1890). Rapid assessment surveys of marinas and similar sites proved to be an effective means of documenting the arrival and spread of NNS over a relatively wide geographic range and of distinguishing different rates of progression.

To invade or not to invade? Exploring the niche-based processes underlying the failure of a biological invasion using the invasive Chinese mitten crab

“…Outside its native range, E. sinensis is considered an invasive species that has successfully established breeding populations in Europe and North America (Brockerhoff and McLay, 2011;Dittel and Epifanio, 2009;Herborg et al, 2003). Previous studies have demonstrated the negative impacts of this invasive species in introduced regions, including predation on native species (Mills et al, 2016;Rosewarne et al, 2016;Rudnick and Resh, 2005;Webster et al, 2015;Wójcik et al, 2015), competition with native organisms (Gilbey et al, 2008;Zhang et al, 2019b), pathogen transmission (Schrimpf et al, 2014), and riverbank erosion (Dittel and Epifanio, 2009). Multiple introduction vectors are blamed for the transportation of E. sinensis into new habitats, including ballast water discharge, the live crab trade, and religious animal release practices (Cohen and Carlton, 1997;Dittel and Epifanio, 2009;Low et al, 2013).…”

Flexible prey handling, preference and a novel capture technique in invasive, sub-adult Chinese mitten crabs

“…In both of these studies, chironomids were shown to be the most prevalent invertebrate in their diet, although much of what was in the gut was morphologically unidentifiable, a common problem when examining the diet of decapod crustaceans due to the effectiveness of the gastric mill. The evidence for this species of crab to utilise other potential prey species is limited, although recent work has demonstrated consumption of fish eggs in laboratory conditions (Webster et al, 2015). Despite the lack of prey preference studies for E. sinensis, such data are available for other species of decapod crustaceans using a variety of different methods (e.g.…”