Carcinus maenas

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Green shore crab
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Suborder: Pleocyemata
Infraorder: Brachyura
Family: Carcinidae
Genus: Carcinus
Species:
C. maenas
Binomial name
Carcinus maenas
A large male C. maenas, on top of a 5-gallon bucket for scale.
A large male C. maenas, on top of a 5-gallon bucket for scale
Two female C. maenas.
Two female C. maenas. Despite the possibly misleading common name, European green crabs are not only green. The underside of their carapace can range from green to yellow to orange to red. The best way to identify them is through other characteristics, such as the five spines on either side of their eyes, with three in between them.

Carcinus maenas is a common

littoral crab. It is known by different names around the world. In the British Isles, it is generally referred to as the shore crab, or green shore crab. In North America and South Africa
, it bears the name European green crab.

C. maenas is a widespread

bivalves moved for aquaculture. [citation needed
]

Description

A young C. maenas showing the common green colour

C. maenas has a

pleopods (collectively the gonopods), which are straight and parallel in C. aestuarii, but curve outwards in C. maenas.[3]

The colour of C. maenas varies greatly, from green to brown, grey, or red. This variation has a genetic component, but is largely due to local environmental factors.

environmental stresses, such as low salinity or hypoxia.[6] Juvenile crabs on average display greater patterning than adults.[7]

Native and introduced range

Approximate distribution of C. maenas
     (blue) native range ● single sightings which did not result in an invasion      (red) introduced or invasive range      (green) potential invasive range

C. maenas is native to European and North African coasts as far as the Baltic Sea in the east, and Iceland and Central Norway in the north, and is one of the most common crabs throughout much of its range. In the Mediterranean Sea, it is replaced by the closely related Mediterranean Green Crab species Carcinus aestuarii. C. maenas was first observed on the east coast of North America in Massachusetts in 1817, and may now be found from South Carolina northwards;[8] by 2007, this species had extended its range northwards to Placentia Bay, Newfoundland.[9] In 1989, the species was found in San Francisco Bay, California, on the Pacific Coast of the United States. Until 1993, it was not able to extend its range, but reached Oregon in 1997, Washington in 1998, and British Columbia in 1999,[10][11] thus extending its range by 750 km (470 mi) in 10 years.[12] As of December 2020 they were just south of Alaska, and were expected to enter Alaska next.[13] By 2003, C. maenas had extended to South America with specimens discovered in Patagonia.[14]

In Australia, C. maenas was first reported "in the late 1800s"

Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, although the species was probably introduced as early as the 1850s.[16] It has since spread along the south-eastern and south-western seaboards, reaching New South Wales in 1971, South Australia in 1976 and Tasmania in 1993. One specimen was found in Western Australia in 1965, but no further discoveries have been reported in the area since.[15]

C. maenas first reached South Africa in 1983, in the Table Docks area near Cape Town.[17] Since then, it has spread at least as far as Saldanha Bay in the north and Camps Bay in the south, over 100 km (62 mi) apart.

Appearances of C. maenas have been recorded in Brazil, Panama, Hawaii, Madagascar, the Red Sea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar; however, these have not resulted in invasions, but remain isolated findings. Japan has been invaded by a related crab, either Carcinus aestuarii or a hybrid of Carcinus aestuarii and C. maenas.[18]

Based on the ecological conditions, C. maenas could eventually extend its range to colonise the Pacific Coast of North America from Baja California to Alaska.[10] Similar ecological conditions are to be found on many of the world's coasts, with the only large potential area not to have been invaded yet being New Zealand; the New Zealand government has taken action, including the release of a Marine Pest Guide[19] in an effort to prevent colonisation by C. maenas.

In 2019 C. maenas was first found in Lummi Bay,

keep their numbers down.[20] Eradication will not be possible.[20]

Over a 19-year study concluding in 2020, Oregon's Coos Bay was found to have an established and increasing population.[21][22]

While in 2020 less than 3,000 were trapped, trapping yielded >79,000 in 2021. This led the Lummi Indian Business Council to declare a disaster in November 2021 and the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife to request emergency funding from the Governor.[23]

Ecology

A female C. maenas carrying fertilised eggs

C. maenas can live in all types of protected and semiprotected marine and

COI gene found genetic differentiation between the North Sea and the Bay of Biscay, and even more strongly between the populations in Iceland and the Faroe Islands and those elsewhere. This suggests that C. maenas is unable to cross deeper water.[25]

Females can produce up to 185,000 eggs, and

intertidal zone.[26] Young crabs live among seaweeds and seagrasses, such as Posidonia oceanica, until they reach adulthood.[27]

Argopecten irradians, a scallop which has been affected by the introduction of C. maenas

C. maenas has the ability to disperse by a variety of mechanisms,

ballast water, ships' hulls, packing materials (seaweeds) used to ship live marine organisms, bivalves moved for aquaculture, rafting, migration of crab larvae on ocean currents, and the movement of submerged aquatic vegetation for coastal zone management initiatives. C. maenas dispersed in Australia mainly by rare long-distance events, possibly caused by human actions.[15]

C. maenas is a

juvenile salmon depend upon for habitat.[28] Colder water temperatures reduce overall feeding rates of C. maenas.[30]

To protect itself against predators, C. maenas uses different camouflage strategies depending on their habitat: crabs in mudflats try to resemble their surroundings with colours similar to the mud while crabs in rock pool use disruptive coloration.[37]

Control

Cancer productus limits the spread of C. maenas in parts of North America.

Due to its potentially harmful effects on ecosystems, various efforts have been made to control introduced populations of C. maenas around the world. In

Edgartown, Massachusetts, a bounty was levied in 1995 for catching C. maenas, to protect local shellfish, and 10 tons were caught.[38]

Some evidence shows that the native blue crab in eastern North America,

parasitic barnacle, as a potential biological control agent of C. maenas.[41] In the laboratory, Sacculina settled on, infected, and killed native California crabs, including the Dungeness crab, Metacarcinus magister (formerly Cancer magister), and the shore crabs Hemigrapsus nudus, Hemigrapsus oregonensis and Pachygrapsus crassipes. Dungeness crabs were the most vulnerable of the tested native species to settlement and infection by the parasite. Although Sacculina did not mature in any of the native crabs, developing reproductive sacs were observed inside a few M. magister and H. oregonensis crabs. Any potential benefits of using Sacculina to control C. maenas on the west coast of North America would need to be weighed against these potential nontarget impacts.[41]

Use as a food

Buttered green crab legs

In its native range, European green crab is mostly used as an ingredient in soups and sauces.[42] However, the closely related Mediterranean green crab (C. aestuarii) has a thriving culinary market in Italy where fishermen known as moecante cultivate soft-shell green crabs (moeche in Venetian, moleche in Italian)[43] and sell hard-shell crabs for their roe (masinette).[44] Several groups in New England have successfully adapted these methods to produce soft-shell green crabs from the invasive species.[45]

In New England where invasive green crab populations are high, various groups have looked into utilizing green crabs in cuisine.[45] In 2019, The Green Crab Cookbook was released and included recipes for soft-shell green crab, green crab roe, green crab stock, and green crab meat.[46] One of the book's co-authors went on to found Greencrab.org, an organization dedicated to developing culinary markets for the invasive green crab. In addition to partnering with local chefs and wholesalers for supply chain development and market studies, Greencrab.org has continued to develop green crab recipes and processing techniques.[47]

Researchers at the University of Maine have actively been developing value-added green crab products, with the goals of driving business interest, stimulating a commercial green crab fishery, and alleviating predation effects.

empanadas (fried, stuffed pastries) which contained varying amounts of green crab mince meat.[49] The empanadas were rated between "like slightly" and "like moderately" for overall acceptability by a consumer panel (n=87). Furthermore, about two-thirds of the panelists would "probably" or "definitely" buy the empanadas if available locally. Additionally, the same researchers developed a patty product made from green crab mince meat using restructuring additives (transglutaminase, dried egg white, isolated soy protein).[50] Although a successful green crab patty was developed, the restructuring additives may have had greater functionality in a raw crab meat system, as opposed to the fully cooked mince that was used in the present study. The results from both studies are considered promising, especially considering that these were initial rounds of green crab product development.[citation needed
]

In the past, Legal Sea Foods, an East Coast restaurant chain, experimented with green crabs, creating a green crab stock in their test kitchen during the winter of 2015.[51] In June 2022 Tamworth Distilling, a New Hampshire distillery, teamed up with the University of New Hampshire's NH Green Crab Project to develop House of Tamworth Crab Trapper, which is billed as being "made with a bourbon base steeped with a custom crab, corn and spice blend mixture".[52]

Fishery

A Bucket of Crabs

C. maenas is fished on a small scale in the northeast Atlantic Ocean, with about 1200 tonnes being caught annually, mostly in France and the United Kingdom. In the northwest Atlantic, C. maenas was the subject of fishery in the 1960s, and again since 1996, with up to 86 tonnes being caught annually.[53]

Taxonomic history

Carcinus maenas was first given a

zoological nomenclature.[54] A number of later synonyms have also been published:[54]

  • Monoculus taurus Slabber, 1778
  • Cancer granarius Herbst, 1783
  • Cancer viridis Herbst, 1783
  • Cancer pygmaeus Fabricius, 1787
  • Cancer rhomboidalis Montagu, 1804
  • Cancer granulatus Nicholls, 1943
  • Megalopa montagui Leach, 1817
  • Portunus menoides Rafinesque-Schmaltz, 1817
  • Portunus carcinoides Kinahan, 1857

The

monotypy).[54] In 1847, Nardo described a distinct subspecies occurring in the Mediterranean Sea, which is now recognised as a distinct species, Carcinus aestuarii.[1]

Neurochemistry

Particular

binding affinity in the sensory epithelium. This effect is very reversible.[55]

Physiochemistry

The usual decrease in extracellular chloride due to increased extracellular bicarbonate is avoided if C. maenas is first acclimated to the increased pCO2. While this may be due to the already-high extracellular chloride levels in this species, it may instead be because moderately higher pCO2 increases these levels through some unrelated mechanism.[55]

Changes in pH due to sodium and magnesium can alter extracellular iron concentrations.[55]

See also

References

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External links

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