According to this report from The Capital Online, populations of invasive green crab (Carcinus maenas) found in the Chesapeake Bay are being kept in check by an unlikely source: native blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus). In taste tests, the blue crabs preferentially chose green crabs over foods they have eaten historically, like clams. The biologists studying the crabs recently published the results of their tests, done both in the lab and in the ocean, in an article in the journal Ecology.
Bonus points to The Capital for noting the scientific names of both crab species.
2 comments:
The research is published as: deRivera, C.E., G.M. Ruiz, A.H. Hines, and P.R. Jivoff. 2005. Biotic resistance to invasion: native crab predation limits the abundance and geographic distribution of an introduced crab Ecology 86:3364-3376.
Best wishes, Paul
The full reference and abstract is linked to in the post above (via the word "article"). Better yet, the article is now available online for those of you that don't have library access to Ecology: Get the .pdf
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