Invasive crustaceans reproduce
without mating, and have spread from Germany to countries as diverse as
Madagascar and Japan
Josh
Gabbatiss Science Correspondent
A crayfish species that
came into existence less than 25 years ago has spread around the world by
cloning itself.
The entire global population of
marbled crayfish has been traced to a single female held in a German aquarium,
which was born with the ability to reproduce without having its eggs fertilised
by males.
Every marbled crayfish is female,
and every egg laid is an exact clone of its mother.
The ability to reproduce quickly
and with such ease made the crustaceans popular in the aquarium trade, but
when they found their way into the wild the crayfish got out of control.
“It was known that the crayfish
can establish itself in the wild after releases from the aquarium,” said Dr
Frank Lyko, a researcher at the German Cancer Research Centre who has sequenced
the genome of the marbled crayfish to understand its abilities. “But the news
was that it can spread so rapidly and massively.”
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