Abstract
The decline of native crayfish biodiversity caused by introductions of invasive crayfish has been well documented; however, the fate of their associated biota remains overlooked. Native European branchiobdellids (Annelida: Clitellata)—crayfish ectosymbionts—were monitored in Czech Republic in three localities with past or present sympatric occurrence of the native noble crayfish Astacus astacus (AA) and invasive signal crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus (PL). No branchiobdellids were detected in two localities with abundant populations of PL but with absences of AA, although they were recently recorded there. Two species of branchiobdellids (Branchiobdella parasita and B. pentadonta) were detected on both crayfish species in the locality where AA still coexists with PL. However, PL harboured a significantly lower abundance of both branchiobdellids than AA (80.7% and 90.8% decrease, respectively) and a significantly lower number of their attached cocoons (95.7% and 95.0% decrease, respectively). Nevertheless, the abundance of branchiobdellids was positively correlated with the carapace length in both crayfish species. Other potential predictors related to crayfish biological parameters (e.g. sex or missing appendages) were not significantly related to the abundances of both branchiobdellids and their cocoons. We also performed laboratory experiments with both branchiobdellids distributed on size-matched individuals of AA and PL to verify the results of field observations. The probability for branchiobdellid survival was significantly higher on AA in both branchiodellids for all the time of the experiments. The absence or decreased abundances of the native branchiobdellids in the invasive crayfish suggest their limited capability to deal with the replacement of host species.
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The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The study was financially supported by the Grant Agency of the University of South Bohemia (project No. 065/2022/Z) and by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (project CENAKVA no. LM2018099). The authors are grateful to Tomáš Randák and Otomar Linhart for funding acquisition. The authors are also grateful to Julian Reynolds for English editing.
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Conceptualization: FL, AK and MB; methodology: ML and FL; formal analysis and investigation: ML, FL and MB; writing—original draft preparation: ML, FL and MB; Writing—review and editing: AK, MB and MB.
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Let, M., Ložek, F., Kouba, A. et al. Signal crayfish as a threat for European ectosymbionts: overlooked biodiversity losses. Aquat Sci 85, 30 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-022-00932-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-022-00932-w