Influence of warming on the functional responses of invasive omnivores, Procambarus crayfishes
Publication: Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
4 April 2025
Abstract
The red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) and the marbled crayfish (Procambarus virginalis) are congeneric invasive species whose potential impacts in the Great Lakes basin have generated concern. In laboratory experiments, we tested the functional responses of these omnivores to two common food resources, insect larvae (Chironomus bloodworms) and aquatic macrophytes (Eurasian milfoil Myriophyllum spicatum), to gain predictive information on their per capita effects under present (18 °C) and projected future (26 °C) climate scenarios for the basin. The maximum feeding rate of Procambarus virginalis was higher at 18 °C than at 26 °C when presented with bloodworms but did not differ between temperatures when presented with macrophytes. By contrast, the feeding rate of Procambarus clarkii did not change with temperature for either food resource. Due to their larger mean size, Procambarus clarkii exhibited higher rates of resource (bloodworm and macrophyte) consumption than Procambarus virginalis at both temperatures. These results suggest that trophic impacts of Procambarus virginalis will dampen with increased warming, whereas Procambarus clarkii will sustain larger impacts irrespective of temperature within the range tested.
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Published In
Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
Volume 82 • 2025
Pages: 1 - 8
History
Received: 25 October 2024
Accepted: 28 February 2025
Accepted manuscript online: 13 March 2025
Version of record online: 4 April 2025
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© 2025 The Authors. Permission for reuse (free in most cases) can be obtained from copyright.com.
Data Availability Statement
Available on Dryad (https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.12jm63z89).
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Conceptualization: NLMS, AR
Data curation: NLMS
Formal analysis: NLMS, AR
Investigation: NLMS
Methodology: NLMS, AR
Supervision: AR
Writing – original draft: NLMS
Writing – review & editing: NLMS, AR
Competing Interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Funding Information
Financial support was provided by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (Grant #007-00397) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC RGPIN-2022-03235).
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Noémie L.M. Sheppard and Anthony Ricciardi. 2025. Influence of warming on the functional responses of invasive omnivores, Procambarus crayfishes. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.
82: 1-8.
https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2024-0334
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