General research
Chinese mitten crab
What is an invasive Species?:
How is the Chinese Mitten Crab invasive?
- A non-native species to the area, which can cause human, environmental and economic harm.
How is the Chinese Mitten Crab invasive?
- Natively from South East Asia, from the coastal rivers and estuaries of the Yellow Sea
- Female crabs can produce up to 100,000- 1,000,00 eggs each spawn causing quick population growth
- Omnivores- they will eat macrophytes (aquatic plants), algae, dead fish, invertebrates (both hard and soft-shelled)
- They dig and burrow which causes damage to sediment banks and costal protection systems, increasing erosion
- Cause damages to fishing nets - they try to feed on fish and get caught causing more problems for fishermen
- Introduced to the San Francisco Bay in 1992 by commercial shrimp trawler
Spreading of Chinese Mitten Crab
Sea walnut
How is the Sea Walnut invasive?
- Native to the East Coast in North America
- In 1982, the Sea Walnut was discovered in the Black and Caspian Seas, it was transported by ballast water (tank with water intake on the hull of a boat)
- Collapsed local fisheries because they fed on the Zooplankton that commercial fish ate