Mike/ Marie/ "Est Sci":
I am somewhat alarmed to hear that this species has reached as far north
as North Yorkshire on the English east coast. A couple of years ago,
Tony Berry and I published a detailed study of the crab fauna of the
Forth Estuary in south-east Scotland (JMBA 77, 167-183, 1997), maybe
100-150 miles north of Mike's patch. I can confirm that, at that time,
chinese mitten crabs had not yet reached the inner Forth Estuary. SEPA
has an ongoing benthic trawling programme (established previously by one
M. Elliott !) and I shall ask colleagues to keep a special watch for
this species although there seems no prospect of actually doing anything
to stop the invasion if it is going to happen. Ironically, our native
Carcinus maenas is causing problems elsewhere through, for example,
damage to bivalve culture, having been introduced as an alien species
(e.g. California).
Does anyone know if the chinese mitten crab has rhizocephalan barnacle
parasites like Sacculina ?
Best wishes,
Scot
>----------
>From: M.Elliott[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: 12 July 1999 18:42
>To: Marie Pendle EG CEFAS
>Cc: 'Estuarine Science'
>Subject: Re: Chinese mitten crabs
>
>Dear Marie
>
>As far as I know, the Chinese mitten crab has now moved up
>England as far as North Yorkshire. They are causing
>problems to flood defence banks by burrowing into them The
>Environment Agency in York and Newcastle may have the
>records). I gather that the crabs move slightly further
>down into estuaries during spawning and that there are
>different migration patterns between males and females. I
>also recently heard (from Zita Costa in Lisbon) that they
>are now in the Tagus estuary so this problem is not going
>to go away. When we did our data analysis of fishes in
>European estuaries from Oslo to the Tagus (Elliott &
>Deailly in Neth J Aquatic Ecology 1995 29 397-417) we used
>many unpublished records and some included the
>epifauna/hyperbenthos as well as the fish. I don't remember
>any other records of these crabs but I'll let you know if
>there are records.
>
>Best wishes
>
>Mike
>
>On Fri, 9 Jul 1999 16:00:07 +0100 Marie Pendle EG CEFAS
><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Hi there - I received the message below from a former colleague. I had
>>heard of the Chinese Mitten crab being a vagrant within the Thames, but
>>unfortunately know little else. Could anyone help?
>>
>> >We are insuring the Greenwich Millenium Village Site. The Remediation
>>Work
>> >included building a gravel bank in to the water to ensure that wildlife
>> >would still be able to survive there after the works. Sadly the
>> >aforementioned crustacea are systematically destroying it! I'm not
>> >entirely sure what our Technical Director thinks we might be able to do
>> >about it, but if you can tell me anything at all, or you're involved in
>>any
>> >way, or you can point me to suitable literature could you please let me
>> >know asap?
>>
>> Thanks in anticipation
>>
>> Marie Pendle
>> CEFAS Burnham Laboratory
>> Remembrance Avenue
>> Burnham-on-Crouch
>> Essex. CM0 8HA
>> 01621 787200 ext. 243/246/204
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>
>----------------------
>Dr. Mike Elliott
>Institute of Estuarine & Coastal Studies,
>& Dept. of Biological Sciences
>University of Hull
>Hull, HU6 7RX, UK
>Tel. +44 (0)1482 465503
>Fax. +44 (0)1482 465458 (Dept.)
> +44 (0)1482 465001 (IECS)
>[log in to unmask]
>For more information about the Institute see:
>www.hull.ac.uk/iecs or Tel. +44 (0)1482 465667
>
>
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