Screen hopefully everybody could see that um and here we go so my presentation this morning is uh about one of the very recent invasive uh crayfish in in Ontario uh the other culprit uh my co-author Brookshire is going to talk about uh later this morning so uh invasive cish are are a
Big problem uh worldwide this is a gallery of the seven I guess worst Rogues that that are invading every continent um uh except Antarctica I guess Africa which never had any grayfish now has has uh at least a couple and uh it’s it’s the case everywhere I could talk about the seven
But that would be another presentation um so just uh a bit of uh background in in Ontario we have the richest FAA of crayfish we have eight native crayfish and four introduced compared to Canada um where uh we have 15 species and five introduced now in Ontario we have uh we
Have uh more than just just the two that I mentioned uh we we have three other species of introduced grayfish the the rusty crayfish which some of you may be already familiar with it’s widespread and it’s it’s replaced natives at high density uh all over Ontario uh here in
The cortas where where I am uh today we it’s it’s really difficult to find a native crayfish most of the crayfish you see arres and then there is the alagan crayfish um uh which occurs in Ontario and Quebec it’s not as widely spread uh it’s it’s in a few few locations mostly
In Northern Ontario uh the ID is difficult because people confuse it with some of the natives and with the hybrids of of Rusty grayfish with natives so it’s always been it’s been misidentified but it looks like it’s not expanding in Ontario and then the third one is the
Famous asex marbot grayfish which was in the news lately but book’s going to talk about those later today so I’ll leave that uh just to recap um the recap uh the the regulations in Ontario crayfish can be used as as as bait in in Ontario
But they have to be uh used in the same water body um as they were caught so if you’re fishing in a in a lake you can catch grayfish and use them as Spade they cannot however be transported over for dead over Overland Dead or Alive the
Other important thing here is that the genus brokus which this White River crayfish that I’m talking about is is is a part of has has been uh prohibited as of the beginning of this year and together with another uh genus from out west as well as a yabi from from
Australia um the there is no no really Federal regulations for crayfish crayfish are mostly regulated provincially the only one that’s regulated Fe federally is is the resty crayfish and only in Manitoba so that’s this is so this is what the the the Beast that I’m talking about today it’s
A it’s a large grayfish it’s very similar to the Louisiana red crawfish which some of you may have eaten or have seen a restaurants or or other places because it’s famous it’s it’s very similar but it’s it’s also large but it has the difference is that
It has this open areola uh which is this part on the caravas it has a very characteristic uh uh four prong male gonopod which is the male reproductive uh um um appendage and uh it also has these elongated very tuberculated CLA as I said it can get very large this this specimen is
Actually from Ontario it’s from uh uh Point not point pey but from pey Island and it’s one of the largest specimens ever caught it was more than 25 cm long um this is the distribution of of the of this crayfish uh in brown you see the
The the native range of it and then the circles Are all uh introduced populations um in the in the states so you could see it’s been introduced uh quite uh while Ley and the two red spots are the Canadian uh uh PL two places where you found them in Ontario so far
And Canada so the first place uh that they were found is actually on peely Island and it looks like they were there already since 2015 but they were not recognized and therefore not established but we know now that they’re there they’ve been there for a while and they’re they’re breeding we’re a bit
Worried about them because they may be in competition with uh with two local burrowing species that are endemic to to the island and also some endangered salamanders because the salamanders can use grayfish Burrows and these things all make uh make uh big Burrows and we’re worried about predation on the salamanders and
Competition uh then the other place uh that turned up uh in in 2022 uh we started getting reports from from the Severn sound region and and they first turned up on on I naturalist I identified them as as being White River crayfish they were all caught walking on land except this one that’s
In the middle here uh that was photographed at the at the SE Port SN Marina by one of the workers St and she thought it was a lobster actually anyway so we we went out in late late in the year in 2022 and and looked for these grayfish we couldn’t
Find them at smile Lake Provincial Park uh or or in Port 7 but we did see one at the Port 7 Marina where that picture was taken so but no no captures but we did see one but it was late in the season so we returned uh with the ofah uh invasive
Species crew uh and we we did a proper survey um during during the following summer and we found lots of pre fish in you know in several uh uh size classes uh none of the females that we caught um that were mature had eggs attached but
Some of them had glare glands and these glands signify uh that they will made soon they they use these this glare to extrude and attach the eggs to the to the abdomen we we dug a lot of burrows there was a lot of burrows under the bank that
Were a little bit cryptic but you could see the the openings and and in some cases the excavation and in this picture here you could see the excavation and so we we were digging these Burrows and you could you could see uh Jeff sticking his
His hand down one of the Burrows uh they were deep but luckily the crayfish were seemed to be active and they were inside the Burrows and we were able to p pull them out so we caught these grayfish and we also uh in had these signs made up
Before we we went out there and uh and installed these signs at uh Six Mile Lake Provincial Park Port SN Park uh as well as the marina and uh Dr hosy from Trent University took some signs to peely Island and they were they were also put there we suspect that the
Vector of introduction of the species uh has been uh bait use for angling because both peely Island and port sver and Six Mile uh Lake are popular angling places where that host angling tournament with lots of American visitors so we we we went out again in September
2023 uh Brooke and I went uh actually on a bit of a vacation crayfish vacation and did some sampling uh at night and and uh during the day and we got lots more pre fish we found lots of pre fish in all the places where we found them
Before and uh two other places mlan Lake and Black River where we hadn’t found them so it looks like they’re they’re spread a lot more and established we I also managed to catch one female with eggs which which is a big deal because it’s it shows us that they’re they’re
Breeding uh and the females are very cryptic uh if you look at the there’s very little actually life history information in the literature on this grayfish because the females carrying eggs are very cryptic they’re hard to find and so there’s very little information on reproduction but they can
Carry up to 500 to 600 eggs uh on a big female another worrying thing uh that besides all these new records is that the new in naturalist record turned up in some 2033 in the Sturgeon Bay Area which is a f a little bit further south and it’s
Directly connected to uh uh U Georgian Bay and Lake hon therefore there’s a there’s a chance that these things are actually already in Georgian Bay so uh why why why do we need to worry about them well they there’s competition with Native crayfishes for food and shelter they can impact
Biodiversity and alter the whole F food web they they have they they could predate on insects and mollusks like uh clams and and uh and snails as well as fish eggs and Fish Fry they also uh like to eat plants so they can they can consume a lot of uh aquatic mcroof
Fights uh and because they do this huge Burrows they can destabilize Shore shorelines um in Port Severn they they also use the rocks that are piled up at at the peers and stuff but if there is no rocks they will burrow uh quite extensively and here is a picture here
With the red arrow I don’t know if you could see it it’s actually one of the captive specimens that we brought back feeding on a juvenile uh Northern Clearwater crayfish which is a native we had them in a tank together and this grayfish was catching the little
Ones and eating them kind of like popcorn uh the other big worry is that we when we did all those surveys in the p s area we did not find any natives Sy Patrick with these things so it was only White River crayfish in the area where where they were no natives whatsoever
Which doesn’t both well so what can we do what what is our management strategies um well the we can educate people I think we need to educate Anglers naturalists and the general public in in effective way of preventing this introduction and and spread of these uh cray fishes uh so don’t move
Them you know uh more signage we need more signs post them in areas where we think uh uh these things are and obviously people need to be able to identify them so they are e in some ways easy to identify because they’re B much bigger and they’re red and they they
Don’t really look like our native grayfish but we are in Preparation with Brooke also we’re making a new uh crayfish guide uh uh for 20 24 we’re hoping that it’ll be out in May and we can distribute it uh on to to the public and and researchers
And they they’ll be able to I crayfish using this guide uh citizen science obviously is really important because this is how we figured out that these things were in Ontario for my naturalist okay uh Ed maps and so on and if you see these you need to report them to the uh
Invasive species hotline uh we want to continue the surveys around the port 7 area and peely Island to determine the distribution and the effect on the ecosystem and on the native populations and lastly the regulations for for this genus uh need to be enforced I mean
They’re in place as of January 24 uh 2024 they’re prohibited which means you can’t move them uh you can’t be in possession of them and therefore the English should strongly be uh discouraged from using them as bait if if they uh happen to catch them so I just want to
Uh thank uh ofah and and and Brooke my co-author and cooworker in the field and uh this these are our contact contacts and if you have any more questions or comments or reports of White River crayfish please do not hesitate to uh get in contact with us thank
You thank you premik uh so we have a few minutes for questions um so if you do have a question please just put it in the Q&A box so the first one we have is would a hybrid between a rusty crayfish and a native species still be considered
Invasive yes I I would say so the problem with with the rust these is is and they’re different I mean I could talk about them and I should talk about them but they when when the hybrids back cross they usually produce rusties they don’t produce Natives and the American
American researchers have shown this actually okay um another question we have is what’s the perception of the general public when you try to involve them in citizen science the people are very positive people have been very helpful in in looking for these things on I naturalist there’s a couple of people who are
Really active and and actively looking for these and as I said we’ve had new reports uh so people are very very good but they’re also ignorant of the laws and and they also can’t tell crayfish apart when I tell people in the coras that that they’re looking at rusties that all the
Crayfish they see are rusties they just can’t believe that they’re from Ohio that they’re not from from Canada so you know we need to educate people hey um I think that’s all we have for questions right now so we’ll just wait a couple more minutes to see if any more come
In if you don’t mind Jen I’ll just touch on that last question as well go ahead a really nice thing too is in the development of those signs we didn’t install that many per se um I think we installed three or four around the port
SN area and then I think five of them went to petley Island um but even with that small amount of signage we’ve been getting a number of people calling the hotline a number of people reporting White River crayfish online which is helping determine the distribution of the
Species currently in those areas so it’s really great to see that the signage is working that that individuals are are recognizing the crayfishes based on the drawing that premi did and the photos that that we have on the sign and uh getting that that uh those reports into
Us and as I said I think if when the guide comes out it’ll be super helpful there hasn’t really been anything uh you know there’s a very old book that’s now out of print called the crayfishes of Ontario which doesn’t have a lot of the species that are here now certainly not
Very not all the invasives and Brooke will talk about the marbled crayfish which is another big problem coming and and so I think the the guide will be really helpful and we’ll make sure we can get it out to people to use yeah and it will be available on invading
Species. so you will be able to to download it um we will also have a number of physical copies which we’ll be hopefully handing out at various trade shows and whatnot moving forward um so yeah and that should actually be towards the end of March when that’s available
So hopefully look for that on invading species. it’ll be like I said it’ll be downloadable and it’s really I just want to emphasize that it’s really important for for people who maybe listening who are from the two regions that are of concern that they if they do see uh
Weird crayfish they take lots of good photos uh in sharp focus and uh either post them on I naturalist or or send them to me or or Brooke because it’s super helpful for us we can’t be everywhere it’s very difficult to to get out there and do
Surveys yeah and then for our people listening from the US Doug Jensen did mention that they’re also working on a crayfish guide in the US so be sure to look out for that and then just to Doug also identify that there’s some questions in the Q&A are those signs uh
Can the public order so those signs were a very limited run um but that being said we’re always happy to work with individuals to get them whatever signage they need whether it’s clean drain dry or invasive carps or in this case cray fishes or Don’t Let it Loose so Julia if
You would like to get in touch I’ll be presenting at 10:00 and my email will be on the last slide so if you just want to grab my email and uh shoot me a message I’ll be sure to work with getting you some signage yeah a big message just let’s
Just not move any grayfish anywhere and especially do not release them anywhere like if if you do happen to catch one of these things which I didn’t say uh the best way to dispose of them is is to put them in your freezer uh overnight and they’ll they’ll just basically go to
Sleep and then freeze so it’s a humane way of uh euthanizing them and then you could just uh either bury them or throw them in the rubbish okay uh thank you very much premik um so that is all the time we have for questions so up next we have uh
A presentation from Aaron franchville from St Mary’s University I’ll just okay great hope that’s visible for everybody yeah so I’m a in franchville I’m a master’s of science candidate at St Mary’s University in hellofax Nova Scotia uh my adviser is Dr Linda Campbell in the environmental science department um we do have some
Collaborators on this project with a department official and oceans Nova Scotia the department of fisheries and aquaculture Nova Scotia and K Bron University and so the working title of this project is the impacts of uh introduced chain pickerel which is invasive fish species on Lake food web structure and the implications for
Species at risk and so this is a comparative study comparing a lake with and without chain pickerel uh using stable isotope analysis which I’ll explain further so what are Team B girl our invasive fish species um well they’re introduced to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia um their native uh distribution
Or natural range primarily consists of the Atlantic slope from Southwest Maine to Southern Florida um they’re site oriented Ambush Predators they’re often found in slow moving Waters in the loral zone or near shore Zone uh camouflaged among vegetation where they can easily Ambush their prey um and their diet is Lar bous
In nature meaning that they eat other fish species and so what’s interesting about this photo here is uh there’s kind of a distinct dietary shift in chain pickerel that occurs uh at a benchmark of approximately 15 centimeters in length so chain picker all 15 cmers and Below
As seen on the bottom picture their diet primarily consists of vpic macro invertebrates um largely dragonfly nymphs whereas chain pick girl 15 cm and above um like the one seen in the top photo which is approximately 30 cm um their diet consists primarily of other fish so approximately 60% of their diet
Or more consists of other fish species and so I won’t spend long here but uh chain pickerel were first introduced into Nova Scotia in 1945 into Just Three Lakes for sport fishing purposes um but have since then followed kind of a classic invasive species curve um where over time there’s kind of
Exponential growth and spread into new habitat and new uh freshwater bodies of water um and so we’re just seeing this exponential growth and spread curve um of a classic invasive species introduction um mirrored in the chain pick roll in Atlantic Canada and so as of this year they’re found in over 300
Distinct bodies of water in uh New Brunswick and Nova Scotia so what are the known impacts um they’re not very well studied in Atlantic Canada however there was uh a really important report commissioned by the Nova Scotia Department of fisheries and aquaculture in 2010 and so what they did is they
Compared lakes with and chain pickerel um specifically looking at fish community structure and what they found was there was three very consistent impacts of chain pickerel um in these Lakes so first they found that um fish community structure was simplified in lakes with chain Piel so there were less
Um different species of fish caught in lakes that contain chain pickerl second uh there was a reduction in overall fish abundance in Lakes so less fish were caught overall in lakes that contain champ picel versus Lakes without uh and lastly there was a truncation in fish
Siiz distribution uh and so there was an absence of small bodied fish and small pre fish species in lakes that contain ch pick roll so knowing this what are the gaps in this knowledge um how do chain pick roll in Impact entire Lake food webs and how are vulnerable species at risk
Impacted so that’s the goal of that study um it’s to evaluate those two things overall food web impacts uh and impacts to a vulnerable atrisk species so our atrisk species is yellow layup muscle it’s a freshwater muscle native to eastern North America it was assessed as special concern by kwick and
Uh on schedule one of the species at risk act and listed as threatened under the Nova Scotia uh Endangered Species Act and so what’s really interesting about uh yellow lamp muscle is during this portion of their life cycle where they are what we call obligate parasitoids um so they have a laral
Phase where they require a fish host to continue their life cycle and so adult muscles release this laral phase of muscle called gidia they attach to the gills of a selected fish host um where they feed on the nutrients from their fish host for around 40 to 80 Days uh
Before dropping as juvenile muscles to the substrate where they continue this life cycle so what’s really interested interesting about yellow lamp muscle in Nova Scotia uh is currently white perch is the only fish species that appears to host uh yellow lamp muscle gidia and they’re the only fish species in Nova
Scotia um where they found yellow muscle gladia on their gills so they’re crucial to the survival uh and recruitment of yellow muscle so what we’re going to focus on later in this project is really the relationship between chain pickerel and white perch as we do know already
That chain pickerel um Can vastly impact fish community structure and the potential implications that this might have for the yellow L muscle which requires white perch as its fish host and the last thing I’d like to say about yellow lamp muscle is like other freshwater muscle species um they’re
Really important uh and have a lot of ecological significance to food webs and overall ecosystems um so they’re filter feeders um so they filter um uh nutrients organic debris and phytoplankton from the water column and release uh filtered water um so they play a very important role they act as
Indicators of overall ecosystem health and water quality um but they also play an important role in nutrient cycling um as a prey source for some species um and so they’re very ecologically significant and so what are our study sites for this project uh we looked at two Lakes located in Cape Bron Nova
Scotia blacket Lake and potle lake so potle Lake chin pickerel are actually actually absent from potle Lake it does serve as a municipal portable water source and so access to this lake is restricted uh and so luckly it’s much more difficult for an invasive species to be introduced to this Lake system and
We sampled it in 2021 and then blacket Lake chain pick roll were found in this Lake in 2010 and it was sampled in 2013 2018 and 2021 and so what’s important is both legs host both white perch and yellow lamp muscle um so it offers the opportunity for a
Comparison so on the top we have a picture of potle Lake uh and on the bottom black its Lake and so this is just showing the Four Lakes in Nova Scotia where yellow lamp muscle um are present but of course we’re just focusing on potle lake and blacket lake
And they are in adjacent watersheds and therefore should have very similar species assemblage for comparison so the methods um most importantly we wanted to col a very comprehensive and rep representative food web sample so we targeted both um habitat in the loral so Nearshore and pelagic so open water zones we collected
Zup Plankton benic macro invertebrates uh two species of muscle a limited quantity of our yellow lamp muscle and we collected Eastern elliptio muscle which is a more common muscle species and then fish of course both native and introduced so for the lab of course we collect our biometric data from all of
Our samples but more importantly we collected and dried and ground um muscle tissue samples um so from dorsal muscle and fish and from the foot muscle and a yellow lamp muscle and we sent these to the stable isotopes in nature laboratory in frederickton new brunwick and so what is stabil isotope
Analysis uh stabil isotope analysis definitely has a very very wide um variety of applications um however it’s really uh comfor for as a Forefront method for examining the structure and Dynamics in aquatic food webs so stable isotopes are forms of elements that do not Decay into
Other elements over time so they act as very uh consistent and reliable uh indicators that you can trace through different components of an ecosystem so stable isotopes um they serve as ecological tracers they allow us to map out the interactions within a food web by providing insights into to
Both what an organism eats and how energy flows from one trophic level to another so for this study we’re using carbon 13 also referred to as Delta carbon 13 which is the ratio of carbon 13 to carbon 12 as well as nitrogen 15 referred to as Delta nitrogen 15 and
It’s the ratio of nitrogen 15 to nitrogen 14 so nitrogen acts as an indication of an organism’s trophic level position uh and this is because as we move up each trophic level in the food web Delta nitrogen 15 increases at a rate of approximately 3.4 parts per Mill per
Trophic level so this is called stepwise enrichment and it’s really fundamental to understanding food web Dynamics um so basically as a predator consumes its spray the heavier isotopes of nitrogen so nitrogen 15 it becomes more concentrated in the Predator’s tissue and so it’s measuring this incremental increase in nitrogen 15
Um that we use to determine an organism’s position within the food web hierarchy and then Delta carbon 13 uh it’s used to track dietary sources of carbon from the base of the food web um and so the degree of enrichment or depletion can tell you um whether that
Dietary source of carbon is pelagic or loral in nature so carbon 13 and nitrogen 15 are commonly plotted together um to form a biplot so again uh interpret interpreting this biplot can tell us a lot about trophic Niche um and we can make inferences about Predator pre relationships and uh
Feeding habits and so again to interpret the axes Delta nitrogen 15 um often correlates with an organism’s trophic level position more enriched in Delta nitrogen 15 is occupying a higher trophic position and then for our dietary sources of carbon those are found on the x-axis more depleted in
Carbon 13 um usually derived from pic sources and more enriched from loral sources or near shore and so again analyzing this bipot can tell us a lot one about trophic position uh two about dietary sources of carbon but again the proximity of isotopic values of an organism um of a
Potential predator to a potential pre Source suggests likely feeding habits um and again trophic Niche um can be inferred often from a stabiliz to biplot and so just to introduce trophic Niche um it refers to the role a species plays in its ecosystem specifically how it fits within the food web and its
Dietary habits and this is just to presentes that stepwise enrichment and so I’m not going to talk about everything located on these biplots but now that we’ve introduced a stabilized show biplot um you’ll be more familiar and so this is looking at black it’s like a Time series from 2013 2018 and lastly
2021 and so we’re going to focus on our uh species of Interest white perch with a blue triangle um the smaller size class of chain pick roll is a red circle and a larger size glass of chain pick roll so again over 15 cm um is this
Green uh Circle that’s not filled in and so just quickly pointing out some um of the most interesting relationship is white perch and Chan pickerel appear to be occupying the same trophic level position um which is really important to note um so this is approximately three years after their introduction into the
Lake in 2018 we’re starting to see that chain pick chain picker will occupy a more dominant top trophy position only two white perch were found at all in 2018 uh during the study and then we see that the smaller size class chain pick roll is more integrated throughout the
Food web so we’re kind of seeing this full establishment of that introduced species um throughout the entirety of the food web and last okay perfect thank you lastly in 2021 we were able to catch white perch and chain pick roll again chain pick roll occupying that top trophic position
Fully integrated throughout the food web um but now we’re seeing white perch and those values concentrated in the pelagic Zone which I’ll break down further so then again comparing um our blacket Lake data from Lake of course with Chan ferel to our pole Lake data collected the same
Year in a lake without chain pick roll uh I’ll point out two things very quickly white perch um appear to occupy trophic Niche um that is more thin which I’ll talk about in the next slide um but they’re deriving these dietory sources of carbon um almost solely from the pic
Zone whereas in Lake without chain pick roll they appear to have more variety in where they’re driving their sources of carbon and secondly we’re seeing an elated uh food web in a lake with chain pickerel which is commonly seen because chain pickerel or any invasive top trophy Predator can often carve out a
New um position in a food web that did not previously exist so they elongate that food chain and I don’t have much time but I’ll really quickly talk about looking at trophic Niche so this ellipses is is representing visually the trophic niche of each species so in our
First biplot um we see almost um that they’re completely overlapping the trophic niche of our larger chain pickerel and white perch which suggests a very high degree of competition and in our second biplot just looking from white perch in blacket Lake to white perch in pole Lake um
There what you’re seeing is the breadth of carbon sources is kind of dramatically different and it represents the range of carbon sources in a white purchased diet so it’s an indicator of dietary diversity and so you’re seeing that this is significantly reduced in Black its lake so what that means very
Quickly is um it could mean changes in behavior and dietary habits um to avoid um this High degree of competition with chain pickerel and in turn any changes in behavior and diet can impact um the potential for um white perch and yellow lamp muscle um to coincide in certain
Habitats in the lake um potentially leading to declines in yellow lamp muscle recruitment um so this project is ongoing um we’re ongoing um quantitative data analysis and writing um but overall I just wanted to touch on the pacious nature of chain pick roll um and how this paired Lake experimental design
Allowed us to to assess their impacts in a late with and without thank you you thank you Erin um so we do have a quite a few minutes left for questions um so we don’t have too many right now so if you did have a question for Erin
Um please put it in the Q&A chat uh one question we do have is can chain pickerel hybridize with Native species um that hasn’t been seen in any um of our Lake systems here uh in Nova Scotia and they’re often the only uh species in the pike family um in Nova Scotia New
Brunswick right thank you uh so we’ll just give it another few minutes for questions to come in okay so one question we have is this is an amazing way to quantify food web Dynamics do you know if this has been done for other Aquatic invasions yeah um definitely you’re I’m starting
To see it um more and more often and there’s definitely um kind of giant leaps in stob analysis as um time goes on and it becomes far more popular but I’ve definitely seen it even just locally um used more for invasions of small milk bass um and of course chain pickerel in
Nova Scotia and I know there’s quite a few students doing um similar studies uh within our lab with Jee Pickrel in Nova Scotia thank you okay I think we have time for one more question so this one is if the population of white perch um populations are increasing can the
Invasive species in this perch find a balance even if it means white perch are no longer the top predator yeah there’s definitely um potential for that to happen and uh it was very surprising to people that we did catch so many white perch in that 2021 data set um especially where in
2018 um they put a lot of effort into catching white perch and only caught two and so you can see some species find a balance with chain pickerl over time um and of course yeah that might lead either way to to lower Recruitment and yellow lamp muscle um which it has since
2018 they’ve seen significant declines but it is possible thank you um so so we actually do have time for one more question um really interesting talk what are the sizes of the pick roll um um maybe they also changed the size structure of their pre um so I guess the question is what
Are the sizes of the pick roll the chain pick roll yeah so the again we had quite a few from the smaller size class in certain years which is under 15 centimeters um but some of our biggest uh I think our biggest chain pick roll was around uh 52 cm and they usually
Ranged in that larger size class around the 30 cm Mark um and then our white perch were significantly larger in 2021 um than what we usually see or in the larger um kind of size class for white perch and so what we might see is that um larger
Fish are able to potentially compete with the chain pick roll whereas smaller fish of other species um have trouble doing this and that’s why sometimes you see like truncation and fish siiz distribution that I talked about earlier okay thank you very much eron that’s all we have for questions right
Now um next up we have a presentation from Brook shrier from the Federation of Anglers and Hunters so whenever you’re ready Brooke all right hope you can see that okay all right thanks Jen and thank you to the invasive species Center and again for accepting yet another one of my
Abstracts to come and present and today I will be presenting on the first Wild record of marble crayfish so proamar virginalis in North America and we’ll jump it right off so for this presentation I do have quite a few slides so I apologize if I speak quickly hopefully um I I will have
Enough time to get through all of my slides uh first I’m going to go over uh what is the marble fish or maror KBS and why is that significant for us here in Ontario in Canada and North America and then we’re going to go through the history of the first detection as well
As some of the follow-up monitoring and eradication efforts to date that have been undertaken by us as well as many of our amazing partners and then talking about some of the the next steps for our working group so first just to kick things off so you guys kind of understand who I am
And where I’m coming from so I’m Brook sh I’m the assistant coordinator with the invading speci awareness program and the isap was created in in 1992 as an education and awareness partnership between the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters uh my host organization and the ministry of natural
Resources and Forestry and if you’re not familiar the ofah is Ontario’s largest not for-profit Fish and Wildlife Conservation organization with 100,000 members subscribers and supporters including 725 membership clubs and back in 1992 they they saw that invasive species were you know causing some major issues in the province particularly with
The invasion of the zebra muscle which heard about earlier and decided to partner with the The Province to create what is now the invading species awareness program as a program our our core mandates are to as I said generate education awareness but we also facilitate monitoring and early detection through various means the
Invading species hotline or or Ed Maps the early detection and distribution mapping system and then we also support surveillance control and response as in the case with the marble crayfish that I’m here to talk about today so with that brief introduction what is marble crayfish marmar Krebs and why is it significant for
Us so sorry this this slide is so word heavy but really just want to get all the quick facts out there for you guys so you understand if you’ve never heard of marble crayfish it is uh a crayfish that reproduces pathogenically and so there’s only females that are known to
Exist within the population and can confirm from our surveillance of the cray fishes that we have found spoiler alert that they are no gonopods were found in any of those cray fishes so they’re all female and where it originated was actually it’s kind of a freaky story so it’s in Germany back in
1995 uh it was suspected to have been created uh when sloth crayfish which are native to the US were imported to to Germany and then uh you know marble crayfish came as a result and then interestingly enough you know marble crayfish were then shipped kind of worldwide for the aquarium trade um so
It’s kind of interesting when you when you look at it how it’s you know native to to the states uh brought over to the to Germany to then you know have this this hybridization or this this occurrence occur where you create a marble crayfish and then to have it
Shipped all over the place so it’s it’s really interesting um speaks to globalization and in terms of its it’s you know its climactic tolerance is it can survive in a wide temperature range um it can you know survive through temporary exposures below 8 degrees Celsius and the literature suggests that
What you need and what you’re going to see in this presentation and what we’re trying to achieve is that it needs to be r revealed to 1 to 2° C for more than 2 weeks so what we’ve been trying to do which I’ll get into a little bit later
Is freeze them out and I’ll I’ll tell you whether or not that’s been successful in a bit in terms of habitat you know a wide range of habitats from ponds Lakes canals ditches Rivers streams you name it you know this this girl will will live in it it also
Constructs Burrows but they’re very cryptic uh I don’t think we’ve actually seen one yet but just like many of uh you know many cray fishes they will create those Burrows to escape the cold um and theirs are particularly unique without without chimneys similar to the White River crayfish that premik
Presented on in terms of vectors of introduction I’ve already spoken to this but you know aquarium trade both uh as as a pet but then also as fish food because it because of the way that she reproduces it’s it’s quite easy to have a stock of these crayfish which you can
Then use uh as food for your Predator fish for example we’ve also heard stories U from abroad of contaminated fish shipments uh one particular case was goldfish where marble crayfish was suspected to have been introduced via a shipment of goldfish and then if and when there is a circumstance where these
Are in our ecosystems uh which is not the case yet that there would be a potential for bait release uh via Anglers using wanting to use crayfish as bait so what are the impacts I think we can all you know here I’m sure we all have some experience with invas of
Species so we understand the general impacts and it’s no different here um you know they would compete with Native cray fishes and fish they would alter our food webs they would impact negatively impact biodiversity and because of their their reproductive strategies they kind of represent a very high risk for establishment once
Introduced as you can imagine you know with with many species when a risk assessment is done to determine its its ability to establish they usually have to take into account you know male female number of specimens environment etc etc food availability you name it predation but in this case all you need
Is one all you need is a single female who is you know uh who can survive a round of reproduction to then give birth to to offspring so beyond that there’s also other factors in terms of predation on invertebrates um we’ve been talking about our native clams and and those
Types of things throughout the presentations there’s also the hiy herbivory which is common across all cray fishes and then you know in terms of where they have been established uh worldwide one of those places is Madagascar and there are uh there is literature from Madagascar suggesting that these things have had quite
Detrimental impacts on their Fisheries so we could expect the same here in Ontario and North America so let’s jump into the history of the first detection and this is really the meat and potatoes of the presentation so back in O October of 2021 there was the first record to I
Naturalist now unfortunately that that was recorded as a cambar crayfish so it was in the family cambar and you know that kind of eluded us for a little while as you can imagine there are thousands of reports that are put on our naturalist with varying degrees of certainty in terms of their
Identification and it wasn’t until a few months later that it was brought to our attention and once it was the the MF attempted to make contact with the reporter then Dr Hammer he he sent photos to his colleagues in Czech Republic who had experience with marble crayfish and they were able to
Positively identify it as Marbles and then given the time of year it was so late in the year we decided to delay until the spring of 2022 to do any form of uh surveillance or monitoring at the location so when we first got there in 2022 Prem came came with me alongside
One of my other co-workers and we initially went to survey the location of the an naturalist report so you can see on the map there kind of towards the North and we did not find any Burrows we did not find any cray fishes and then we made contact with the groundskeeper and
The grounds keeper had asked us what we were doing there and we told him we were looking for crayfishes to which he provided us with this photograph from the year prior so from 21 he found this guy crawling across one of the soccer pitches so just going back here as you
Can see uh on on the map that’s where he found the crayfish crawling so quite a distance away from the ponds uh these things are known to travel across land and when we saw the photos premik was in the van and and he looked up and he said
Yep that looks like a marble crayfish to me um so we quickly started enacting various surveillance uh techniques including Edna sampling Chris Wilson who you’ll be hearing from here in the next little while his lab is amazing and they’re always the ones processing our Edna and we were also doing kick and
Sweeps just in the occurrence that maybe we catch one then we also uh planted passive baits with all sorts of different uh bait varieties like you know cat food and and those types of things so that day uh here’s some images from that day we as I said we did the
Edna we did kick and sweeps we uh just looked for any any signs of crayfish whatsoever and we did not find any we did find that there was quite the abundance of non native fish species as one would expect with these types of ponds in a fairly urbanized area so we
Found goldfish and uh Rosy cheek minnows those types of things nothing native and we also did not find any crayfish so then moving on to August 2022 we we we said well you know we we didn’t get really any good Edna or we didn’t get any Edna from the first round
So let’s go back let’s look again so this time we decided you know what we weren’t seeing any signs of fish so let’s just focus on Edna and we did 24 samples and we did six samples per Pond and this will kind of show you those those General locations um the pond well
It’s not really a pond but that’s what looks like a pond on the south side of the connection is completely dried out but there was some drainage there uh so there was a culvert so we decided to collect some water there and send it for for analysis and unfortunately it did come
Back with some positives for marble crayfish so again we wanted to make sure that we were getting you know proper samples we wanted to confirm what we had found already so we went back again in October of 2022 to collect more Edna samples again we did 24 samples there
Are some of my colleagues there uh so Jillian’s on the left who was uh in intern with of and then Rob Macwan who is our our program specialist with with isap doing some Edna and unfortunately those also came back positive and once they were positive we still didn’t have
A crayfish in hand but at this point we formed what is the marble crayfish working group with representation from The Province the federal uh you know Federal entities the City of Burlington which which have been fantastic in helping us as well as conservation colon so then uh in the winter of 2022
As a working group what we did was we worked with the City of Burlington to dewater The Ponds as I said the literature has said that there’s High mortality for marble crayfish when they’re exposed to more than two weeks of 1 to 2 deges celi so we’ve all been
You know all of us in the working group have been crossing our fingers was hoping for a cold winter and 2022 2023 winter was was not really that it was cold there were cold uh you know periods but not cold enough and we also weren’t
Able to get the pawns quite as low as I think we we wanted to uh last year but we did you know in install some fine wire mesh uh which was earlier in the in the in the fall and then we did the dewatering in the winter there’s some images so you saw
That those images before from where we were doing those kick and sweeps on uh early early on in our surveillance and this is that same same location sameeh spot where we had done those kick and sweeps then jumping into May June 2023 um so we decided given our proximity to
The to the park we we’re quite a ways away we’re two hours one way so about four-h hour round trip uh conservation Halton offered to take over the Edna so we decided sure you know we went down we handed off the kits and they started doing some Edna sampling and they did
Get some some weak results but then on J July 5th 2023 a text message was received to me from the grounds keeper and a crayfish had been found on the Pavilion of which we were able to confirm it was a marble crayfish as you see there in the photo minutes left that
Kind of opened the floodgates and we started seeing a lot more specimens so July 12th a week later we had the second specimen then July 13th conservation hon captured specimens then you know as you can imagine just more and more started to be captured we went back there’s my
Colleague there Jeff berlet he’s our one of our Le aons getting in there uh you also saw him in premi’s presentation catching some crayfish so he’s uh he’s our crayfish catcher so we were able to that day um with Jeff’s net skills capture a juvenile marble crayfish so
That was the first time we were actually able to catch one in the pond which was uh really interesting and then we went back in October and I’m going to try to speed up here I apologize um we went back in October of last year and we
Decided to expand our search you could see some Edna results from um you know the the first location these were done by conservation Halton and this was the first location where that IAT report had come up here are the ponds and then here is a pond which we call noack Pond which
Is connected uh underground uh to The Ponds and so presumably while we’re getting positive Edna I am happy to report that we’ve we’ve searched these areas as as a working group in October we did not find any crayfish in Noak Pond nor did we find any crayfish up
Here we’re still only finding crayfish uh in the the ponds where they’ve been detected and there’s just an aerial of the Novak pond so then as I said we expanded our search to other areas you have Chris Wilson in the back there using his backpack sampler for Edna you have folks
From DFO they were amazing they came out with us over the two days to look and then uh these are the different methods that we use for Edna we did the syringe method and then as I said Chris Wilson did the backpack method and then we also use passive Samplers there’s Jeff
Again and then the day two uh we went out we we again expanded our search even further we were looking all over the place around the area just hoping that this isn’t a more widespread issue and what we found that day was Northern clear waters a native species and a very
Grumpy looking uh cambis robustus or big water crayfish who looked like he just wanted to be put back in the water and then in the afternoon of day two we went back to City View Park and as you can imagine we captured many more marbled crayfish and you see all their carace
Lengths there on the right then you see uh Dr Hammer catching his his first one with Trisha from DFO again who is out helping us um that was premik first capture of a marble crayfish and as you can see some of the some of the captures we had that day including some
Goldfish and then some more juveniles young of year you know 6 millim carace length 3 millimet carace length so we have a reproducing population here now most importantly jumping into this year uh with my last few minutes here uh MF has been working with the City of Burlington to drain the pawns even
Further even even more draw down than year one and so Jake who is with MF went out in December and was able to handpick 54 marbled crayfish this is what they were doing just laying there on the substrate uh didn’t find any signs of burrows but it was really hard to see
There’s so many so much frag there and as I said was able to capture or well not really capture but pick up 54 marble crayfish and then uh so this is the dewatering that’s going on this year and as you can see you know we’re hoping for
Some cool temperature we have not got it but we’re doing another dewatering this month because we’re supposed to get a cold spell here and it’s actually snowing as I speak so hopefully it’ll get cold enough for long enough to kill off the rest of these nasty females
Because as I said on the left there you see that the literature has suggested that they’ll die if they’re revealed to more than two weeks of one to two degrees so in in closing last few slides here is the the size classes that we’ve seen to date so these are all the
Captures we’ve had 89 total captures everything from conservation Halton to us to you know uh you know Jake going in capturing 54 so these are all of them as you can see there’s quite the diversity in sizes meaning that they are going through reproductive cycles and even
Potentially two in a in a calendar year and here’s what we’re doing next steps more education Outreach more resources we’re expanding our search so we’re making sure that this isn’t a bigger problem we’re making sure that this is you know kept in those pawns so that we can continue towards eradicating
Uh this nasty species so that you know it does not become a bigger issue here’s some of the signage that we we’ve installed here’s some of the signs that City of Burlington has installed and then finally thank you so much for you know affording me the time to to speak
About this today um we’re going to continue working as a as a working group it’s so great to see all the representation from the various you know um governments government of montario uh you know the Canadian government as well as so many of Usos working towards eradication because we were able to
Catch this species early and as we all know rapid response is key to eradication so if you to get in touch with me I know somebody asked those signs earlier there’s my email there brick shryer o.org pleasee shoot me an email requesting signage you can also
Give us a call on the being species hotline 1800 563 7711 and at this point I’d be more than happy to take any questions that you may have if I have time that is yeah we have a couple minutes uh thank you Brock we do have quite a few
Uh good questions in the Q&A box here so the first one is is there any evidence of marbled crayfish being traded by cray fish enthusiasts in Ontario they’ve been traded and sold attempted intercepted sorry um in the US my understanding is that they are being raised by enthusiasts in their basements very much
Under our radar screen um on how to intercept this pathway yeah absolutely um we have been seeing that and we’ve all been kind of working collectively towards um getting that information to the the powers that you know need to know that so to the mrrf to the tips
Hotline um anytime we’ve seen them for sale on kiji people are are coming up with new and inventive ways of selling these things without actually naming them so self- cloning crayfish or blue crayfish or you know whatever they can say however I’ve even seen ads that have
Said prohibited crayfish for sale so you know I think the knowledge amongst the community is divided I think some people know and are doing it regardless and I think there are some people who just genuinely don’t know and you know I think it’s our our our responsibility to
Ensure that they are getting that information to know that Marvel crayfish are prohibited you know in the province of Ontario as well as their genus uh is also prohibited so yes the answer is yes we’ve seen it and yes uh I can’t speak to the enforcement too much but I am I I
Am aware that enforcement has been has been occurring to try to stop these sales yeah I can just uh add uh that the inspectors the mnrf inspect s have been tracking the online sales and are talking to those people I don’t think we’ve had any convictions but I I know
That they’re tracking it and they’re they’re looking at kajii and and so on tracking the sales and trying to talk to the people and get them to do the right thing okay perfect I think we have time for one more so the next question is I’m curious if there’s correlation between
The habitat that frag mighties cause and the success of these invasive grayfish I’ll let premi answer that one real quick I would say I mean they do like things to hide in right so yeah I would say there’s correlation with vegetation they like vegetation that’s what the Europeans tell me they always
Say look in the vegetation uh but there’s no very little ecological studies they’re just starting uh especially in the field so you know there’s there’s one in Croatia one in Poland where they’ve invaded uh but there’s very little ecological stuff so we’re just at the tip of it not enough
Research so I think that’s all the time we have um thank you again Brooke um then wrapping up our session this morning are Samantha Smith and Katie o shanesy from the Dolphin Island Sea Lab so whenever you both are ready