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Trophic niches of three sympatric invasive crayfish of EU concern

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Abstract

The spread of non-native species results in novel and often unexpected assemblages. Using stable isotopes, we disentangled the trophic relationships between three invasive crayfish species at two sites of a small thermal tributary of the Barát stream, Hungary. We studied Procambarus virginalis and Faxonius limosus living in sympatry in the upper section of this thermal tributary, and then an assemblage in a lower section also containing P. clarkii. The two species in the upper section largely shared trophic niches, although P. virginalis was more carnivorous than F. limosus, which fed more on detritus and aquatic plants. In the lower section, P. clarkii had a distinctive trophic niche, being more carnivorous than the other species and also preying on other crayfish and fish. The trophic niches of the other two species shifted slightly, being narrower and more overlapping in the presence of P. clarkii. It seems that the presence of P. clarkii affects the feeding habits and trophic niches of the other two crayfish. Our results also indicate that the species have somewhat distinctive feeding niches, which suggests that the ecosystem effects of these species are likely to be at least partially additive in the shared localities.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (No. 19-04431S), the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (CENAKVA, LM2018099), the National Research, Development and Innovation Office (No. NVKP 16-1-2016-0003) and the Estonian University of Life Sciences (No. P190254PKKH). The authors would like to thank Edit Répás, Veronika Gábris, Richárd Seprős and Zsombor Bányai for help with the fieldwork. We acknowledge Julian Reynolds for English editing.

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  1. Lukáš Veselý and Timo Ruokonen contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. South Bohemian Research Center of Aquaculture and Biodiversity of Hydrocenoses, Faculty of Fisheries and Protection of Waters, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, Zátiší 728/II, 38925, Vodňany, Czech Republic

    Lukáš Veselý, Jan Kubec, Wei Guo, Martin Bláha, Miloš Buřič & Antonín Kouba

  2. Natural Resources Institute Finland, Survontie 9 A, 40500, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Timo J. Ruokonen

  3. Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Timo J. Ruokonen, Fabio Ercoli & Heikki Hämäläinen

  4. Department of Aquaculture, Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Institute for Natural Resources Conservation, Szent István University, Páter Károly utca 1, 2100, Gödöllő, Hungary

    András Weiperth

  5. ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Systematic Zoology and Ecology, Behavioural Ecology Group, Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter sétány 1/C, 1117, Budapest, Hungary

    Bettina Szajbert

  6. Chair of Hydrobiology and Fisheries, Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Kreutzwaldi 5, 51006, Tartu, Estonia

    Fabio Ercoli

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  1. Lukáš Veselý
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Veselý, L., Ruokonen, T.J., Weiperth, A. et al. Trophic niches of three sympatric invasive crayfish of EU concern. Hydrobiologia 848, 727–737 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-020-04479-5

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