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Invasion dynamics of the European shore crab, Carcinus maenas, in Australia

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Abstract

In Australia and most other invaded locations, rates of range expansion by the European shore crab, Carcinus maenas, are typically only a few kilometres per year, despite a planktonic duration upwards of 50 days and off-shore larval development. This relatively static distribution is punctuated by rare episodes of long-distance and large-scale spread, some of which appear to be related to unusual oceanographic conditions and some of which are likely to be human assisted. These observations suggest, first, that long planktonic duration and off-shore development in a marine invertebrate does not preclude very localised recruitment, and, second, that this recruitment norm may be punctuated by brief episodes of wide scale mixing of propagules. Punctuated dispersal has previously been suggested to account for large-scale biogeographic patterns of distribution and speciation, but may also have implications for the processes that stabilise structured spatial metapopulations.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all the many Tasmanian marine farmers who assisted with our trapping surveys and all the people who provided information about the occurrence of C. maenas in Australian waters. In particular, we thank L. Cleaver, I. Cleaver, H. Dyke, P. Dyke, A. Flintoff, C. Gardner, C. Lester, T. McManus, J. Peddell, E. Turner, D. Whayman, and P. Yaxley. G. Poore, S. Lewis, K. Culbert, J. Carlton and C. Gardner generously gave us access to their unpublished observations on C. maenas. This work also benefited substantially from discussions with E. Grosholz. We thank A. Butler and J. Young for comments on a draft of the manuscript. Finally, we also thank the many individuals who assisted in the field work.

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Correspondence to R. Thresher.

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Communicated by G.F. Humphrey, Sydney

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Thresher, R., Proctor, C., Ruiz, G. et al. Invasion dynamics of the European shore crab, Carcinus maenas, in Australia. Marine Biology 142, 867–876 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-003-1011-1

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