What do you have in your pond?
Or ..
Posted on 02/06/2018 3:48:12 AM PST by sodpoodle
Most species of crayfish reproduce the same way that humans do: by having sex. But one species of crayfish that evolved out of the pet trade can do something unique—clone itself—and this ability has led populations of the crustacean to spawn out of control.
For a study published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution , researchers sequenced the genomes of 11 marbled crayfish, both from the wild and from the pet trade. They found that the genomes in all 11 animals were nearly identical, meaning that they don’t reproduce sexually, and that they are officially a different species than their North American mother species, Procambarus fallax.
“Here we have an evolutionary event that has happened only a very short time ago,” Frank Lyko, Head of divisions of epigenetics at the German Cancer Research Center told Newsweek. “Certainly there will be some changes, genetic changes over time, that will make it more normal. At this specific time point in evolution it’s very unique.”
Lyko explained that forming a new species usually takes evolution thousands of years or more. However, it was only a few decades ago that the North American species of crayfish entered the pet trade, and now a different, exceptional species has emerged from them.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Could I put them in my outdoor pond?
My fish eat everything. They’d totally eat a crayfish.
After the hurricane I found a bird skeleton in my pond. They ate it to the bone.
Really? How did it get broken?
What do you have in your pond?
Or ..
I vaguely remember your reference.
Crabs from Alaska were illegally released into the Barents sea, or something.
There is a big population of them now. They taste good.
I believe there is a Wikipedia entry for it; It’s a really interesting story.
I blame the Russian government.
Tee hee;)
All the wittiest FReepers are up early today!!!!!
Birds are a natural food for fish. Research in the Amazon shows a substantial portion of fish protein diet is birds that die in the water. Ornamental fish hobbyists have taken to feeding ground turkey as a protein staple.
A climax crayfish tank or pond becomes stagnant because the crabs eat everything. Depending on the kinds of fish in your pond they certainly could eat the crayfish. Bass and catfish love crayfish. It would not be a sustainable food, however.
I found the article. It was written in the mid-2000s, and the story was that back in the ‘60s, Russia brought a big population of Red King Crabs over from the Bering sea to the Barents so people living in far northern Russia could use it as a food source.
Initial attempts failed, but they tried again and again, finally bringing a select population of only the largest crabs, and that finally worked (too well). The crab population took off, and by the ‘90s they were spreading down into the coastal areas of Norway and eating everything on the seafloor, which was wreaking havoc on the ecosystems there. The crabs ate mussels, clams, oysters, sea stars, worms, pretty much anything. The downstream effect was that fisheries were being impacted because the crabs were eating things that the fish depended on. The crabs had no natural predators in that part of the ocean, so there was nothing to check their spread.
Presumably by now, the fishing industry has noticed that King Crab goes for upwards of $20 a pound, and since it’s an invasive species there would be no limit on harvesting. If you sold “Wild-caught Norwegian King Crab” in Whole Foods, you could probably get upwards of $30 a pound, and sell every bit you could get.
When it takes two to tango there needs to be music. Clones do it A Capella.
I have koi and goldfish.
The goldfish were feeders that got big.
I also have a few minnows left, but they get eaten regularly until they get too big to fit in a koi mouth.
Due to the recent hurricane I did not feed them for several days, and it was then that I found the bird skeleton.
My fantasy is to catch a catfish from the filthy bayou near me and raise it, and then eat it. We have lots of big catfish in our bayou, centered at the effluent for the waste treatment plant. For some reason they love the yummy poop that is excreted there.
All we need now is a self-replicating crayfish-shucking robot and we’re in business!
This probably happened due to the legalization of gay marriage.
Cows multiplying in this fashion would bring down the cost of beef.
I, for one, welcome our new crayfish overlords...
Craynado!!!
But do they reproduce more often or with greater numbers of offspring?
Or are they just a greater pest with no natural predators....
Looks like Europe needs to import some Cajuns.......Clear up the problem real quick....
Reproduction is more or less automatic, monthly. Maturity is about 3 months. In 6 months there are 10K. In a year a million.
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