Abstract
The invasive red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii (Girard, 1852) can affect freshwater ecosystems, their macrophyte communities in various ways. To examine the effects of red swamp crayfish on clearwater macrophyte-dominated lakes, we performed a 28-day mesocosm experiment, without and with presence of red swamp crayfish, with or without access to sediments using netting. All in the presence of one of the following three different submerged macrophytes: Myriophyllum spicatum L., Vallisneria denseserrulata (Makino) Makino, or Hydrilla verticillate (L.f.) Royle. This experimental design allowed a partial separation of the effects of disturbing the sediment using netting from other factors such as excretion and direct harm of the plants. Nutrients and total suspended solids concentrations were lower in the crayfish-with-net than in the crayfish-without-net treatments but had similar concentrations in the crayfish-with-net and crayfishless-without-net treatments. Compared to the crayfish-with-net treatment, there were more broken leaves in the crayfish-without-net treatments for V. denseserrulata and H. verticillata, while no difference was found for M. spicatum, likely reflecting their different growth forms. Our results suggest that the sediment disturbance by the crayfish was more important than their plant handling/consumption and nutrient excretion for an observed water quality change from clear to turbid.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Anne Mette Poulsen for language assistance.
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This study was supported by preliminary hydraulic research and consulting work of Hubei Water Resources Research Institute (P21800600002), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 32170383, 31500378) and the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (2020CFB537). EJ was supported by AQUACOSMplus (Network of Leading European AQUAtic MesoCOSM Facilities Connecting Mountains to Oceans from the Arctic to the Mediterranean), AnaEE Denmark (anaee.dk) and the TÜBITAK program BIDEB 2232 (project 118C250).
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Gao, J., Yuan, H., Zhang, H. et al. Effects of the invasive red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) on eelgrass-dominated clearwater lakes: the role of bioturbation. Hydrobiologia 851, 1993–2005 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-023-05437-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-023-05437-7