Spatial Variability in Recruitment of an Infaunal Bivalve: Experimental Effects of Predator Exclusion on the Softshell Clam (<i>Mya arenaria</i>L.) along Three Tidal Estuaries in Southern Maine, USA

Beal, Brian F.; Coffin, Chad R.; Randall, Sara; Goodenow, Clint A.; Pepperman, Kyle E.; Ellis, Bennett W.; Jourdet, Cody B.; Protopopescu, George C.

doi:10.2983/035.037.0101

Cited by 25 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 91 publications

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“…Both species can occupy broad swathes of the shore, and their losses as common prey items will affect consumers. Mussels have already disappeared from many intertidal shores throughout the North Atlantic 20,28 ; a loss that has been widely attributed to the recent rise in the predatory green crab, Carcinus maenas 29,30 . Yet, our results suggest recruitment failure associated with processes in the water column is also playing an important role in the decline of mussels throughout the North Atlantic.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Declines over the last two decades of five intertidal invertebrate species in the western North Atlantic

Petraitis

Dudgeon

2020

Commun Biol

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Climate change has already altered the environmental conditions of the world’s oceans. Here we report declines in gastropod abundances and recruitment of mussels (Mytilus edulis) and barnacles (Semibalanus balanoides) over the last two decades that are correlated with changes in temperature and ocean conditions. Mussel recruitment is declining by 15.7% per year, barnacle recruitment by 5.0% per year, and abundances of three common gastropods are declining by an average of 3.1% per year (Testudinalia testudinalis, Littorina littorea, and Nucella lapillus). The declines in mussels and the common periwinkle (L. littorea) are correlated with warming sea temperatures and the declines in T. testudinalis and N. lapillus are correlated with aragonite saturation state, which affects rates of shell calcification. These species are common on shores throughout the North Atlantic and their loss is likely to lead to simplification of an important food web on rocky shores.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Declines over the last two decades of five intertidal invertebrate species in the western North Atlantic

Petraitis

Dudgeon

2020

Commun Biol

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“…The vulnerability to acidified sediments decreases with increasing clam size (Green et al 2009), which may explain why E. leei (the largest clam tested so far) is resilient to sediment surface acidification; however, additional research is needed to determine whether juvenile E. leei are resilient to sediment acidification effects as well. While community-based aquaculture using cultured juvenile soft-shell clams has been ongoing since 1987 (Beal et al 2016;Beal et al 2018), field grow-out trials along the Maine coast are underway to examine the culture potential for other commercial infaunal bivalves such as hard clam, or northern quahog (Mercenaria mercenaria), razor clam (Ensis leei), Atlantic surf clam (Spisula solidissima) and Arctic surf clam (Mactromeris polynyma). E. leei has the potential to be the most resilient to sediment acidification of these species and thus the species of choice to use on grow-out sites with particularly acidic sediments.…”

Section: Acidification Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(f) The European green crab ( Carcinus maenas ) at sizes beginning >1.9 mm is a strong predator on 0 year class (1 mm) clams (Beal et al . 2018). Here, a gravid female (50 mm carapace width, carrying between 100,000 and 125,000 eggs) shows the challenge to Maine shellfish from high recruitment of these well‐established nonindigenous crabs.…”

Section: Resilience Of the Aquaculture Industrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience of cold water aquaculture: a review of likely scenarios as climate changes in the Gulf of Maine

Bricknell

Birkel

Brawley

et al. 2020

Reviews in Aquaculture

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Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing development and continuation of sustainable aquaculture in temperate regions. We primarily consider the ecological and physical resilience of aquaculture in the Gulf of Maine (GoM), where a thriving industry includes marine algae, extensive and intensive shellfish aquaculture, and a well-established Atlantic salmon industry, as well as the infrastructure required to support these economically important ventures. The historical record of sea surface temperature in the GoM, estimated from gridded, interpolated in situ measurements, shows considerable interannual and decade-scale variability superimposed on an overall warming trend. Climate model projections of sea surface temperature indicate that the surface waters in the GoM could warm 0.5-3.5°C beyond recent values by the year 2100. This suggests that, while variability will continue, anomalous warmth of marine heatwaves that have been observed in the past decade could become the norm in the GoM ca. 2050, but with the most significant impacts to existing aquaculture along the southernmost region of the coast. We consider adaptations leading to aquacultural resilience despite the effects of warming, larger numbers of harmful nonindigenous species (including pathogens and parasites), acidification, sea-level rise, and more frequent storms and storm surges. Some new species will be needed, but immediate attention to adapt existing species (e.g. preserve/define wild biodiversity, breed for temperature tolerance and incorporate greater husbandry) and aquaculture infrastructure can be successful. We predict that these measures and continued collaboration between industry, stakeholders, government and researchers will lead to sustaining a vibrant working waterfront in the GoM.

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“…Some of the poorest clam harvest years in Massachusetts and Maine have followed high population levels of C. maenas and, conversely, some of the biggest clam harvests have followed declines in the C. maenas population, which were probably due to environmental factors such as extremely cold winters [19,44,368]. The early part of this decade has seen a large increase in the C. maenas population in Maine, New Hampshire, and northeastern Massachusetts, followed by subsequent sharp declines in the commercial harvest of soft-shell clams [371] only do adult green crabs feed on juvenile and adult clams but postlarval and juvenile crabs prey heavily on newly settled clam larvae [369,[372][373][374][375]. Green crabs also prey on juveniles as well as settling and newly settled postlarvae of another economically important species, American lobsters [280,[298][299][300]376].…”

Section: Ecological Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life History and Population Dynamics of Green Crabs (Carcinus maenas)

Young

Elliott

2019

Fishes

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Carcinus maenas (the “shore crab” or “European green crab”) is a very proficient invader (considered to be one of the world’s 100 worst invaders by the IUCN) due to its phenotypic plasticity, wide temperature and salinity tolerance, and an extensive omnivorous diet. Native to Atlantic Europe, it has established two well-studied nonindigenous populations in the northwestern Atlantic and northeastern Pacific and less-studied populations in Australia, Argentina and South Africa. Green crabs are eurythermal and euryhaline as adults, but they are limited to temperate coastlines due to more restrictive temperature requirements for breeding and larval development. They cannot tolerate wave-swept open shores so are found in wave-protected sheltered bays, estuaries and harbors. Carcinus maenas has been the subject of numerous papers, with over 1000 published in the past decade. This review provides an up-to-date account of the current published information on the life history and population dynamics of this very important species, including genetic differentiation, habitat preferences, physical parameter tolerances, reproduction and larval development, sizes of crabs, densities of populations, sex ratios, ecosystem dynamics and ecological impacts in the various established global populations of green crabs.

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Spatial Variability in Recruitment of an Infaunal Bivalve: Experimental Effects of Predator Exclusion on the Softshell Clam (Mya arenariaL.) along Three Tidal Estuaries in Southern Maine, USA

Cited by 25 publications

References 91 publications

Declines over the last two decades of five intertidal invertebrate species in the western North Atlantic

Declines over the last two decades of five intertidal invertebrate species in the western North Atlantic

Resilience of cold water aquaculture: a review of likely scenarios as climate changes in the Gulf of Maine

Life History and Population Dynamics of Green Crabs (Carcinus maenas)

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