Diatoms prefer strangers: non-indigenous crayfish host completely different epizoic algal diatom communities from sympatric native species

Biological Invasions volume 20, pages2767–2776(2018)Cite this article

Abstract

Despite their wide distribution and ecological importance, almost no information is available about the role of freshwater crayfish as basibiont for epizoic algae. Moreover, studies on epizoic freshwater diatoms have been largely neglected. In this study, we examined the occurrence of diatoms on two sympatric species, the native white-clawed crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes and the non-indigenous signal crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus, coexisting in the same stream in NW Italy. We detected that signal crayfish showed a far more productive epizoic algal community than white-clawed crayfish. Microscopical analysis confirmed that non-indigenous crayfish hosted rich and diversified diatom communities while virtually no diatom was found on the native. After analyzing different hypotheses, we suggested that this significant difference can be the result of diverse crayfish behavioral habits. Because of the lack of studies investigating epibiontic diatoms on freshwater crayfish, we performed a detailed characterization on the epizoic flora, including comparisons with natural epilithic communities. The exponential diffusion of non-indigenous freshwater crayfish is a subject of greatest interest. Increasing our knowledge on their role as basibionts is definitely necessary to better understand their ecological role, also considering their influence on primary producer community and their role as vectors of algal species of concern, such as Didymosphenia geminata.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. Badino and E. Piano for their useful suggestions.

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Affiliations

  1. DBIOS, Università degli Studi di Torino, Via Accademia Albertina 13, 10123, Turin, Italy

    Elisa Falasco & Francesca Bona

  2. DISIT, Università del Piemonte Orientale, Viale T. Michel 11, 15121, Alessandria, Italy

    Tiziano Bo, Laura Gruppuso & Stefano Fenoglio

  3. DSTA, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Via Taramelli 24, 27100, Pavia, Italy

    Daniela Ghia

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  1. Elisa Falasco
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Correspondence to Stefano Fenoglio.

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10530_2018_1728_MOESM1_ESM.xlsx

Supplementary material 1 List of diatom taxa detected on cobbles and Pacifastacus leniusculus. Red List column refers to the classification concerning the conservation status proposed by Lange-Bertalot and Steindorf (1996): 1 = threatened with extinction. 2 = severely endangered. 3 = endangered. G = probably endangered. R = rare. V = decreasing. * = at present not considered threatened. ? = not threatened. · = common. Z = not listed. D = data scarce. The columns “cobbles” and “crayfish” displayed on which substrate the species was recorded (± included in the inventory; R = rare, observed only during the final screening). The last 11 columns show the percentage of relative abundance of each taxa in the samples. (XLSX 32 kb)

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Falasco, E., Bo, T., Ghia, D. et al. Diatoms prefer strangers: non-indigenous crayfish host completely different epizoic algal diatom communities from sympatric native species. Biol Invasions 20, 2767–2776 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-018-1728-x

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Keywords

  • Austropotamobius pallipes
  • Bacillariophyceae
  • Epibiosis
  • Freshwater crayfish
  • Pacifastacus leniusculus