Flow discharge impacts competition for food and shelter between two overlapping species of crayfish

• Published in: Journal of freshwater ecology 2023-07, Vol.38 (1)
• Main Authors: Adami-Sampson, Sophia, Wagner, Madison J., Moore, Paul A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abiotic factors; Aquatic environment; Aquatic organisms; benthic competition; Competition; Crayfish; Discharge; Flow rates; Food; Foods; Freshwater crustaceans; Indigenous species; Invasive species; Orconectes rusticus; Orconectes virilis; Shelters; stream flow
• ISSN: 0270-5060; 2156-6941
• DOI: 10.1080/02705060.2023.2181236

Competition between aquatic organisms is heavily influenced by abiotic factors in the environment, specifically flow regime in aquatic systems. Flow regime has been shown to significantly affect the way in which a species uses the environmental resources and alterations in flow can exasperate competitive advantages by congenerics. However, little work has concentrated on the competitive outcome between native and invasive organisms as a function of flow regime. Here, we sought to uncover how competition between two crayfish species (the native virile crayfish [Faxonius virilis] and invasive rusty crayfish [Faxonius rusticus]) was affected by varying flow rates. To do this, we size-matched crayfish and quantified three separate behaviors (food use, shelter use, and fights) of crayfish in four different discharge levels (no discharge-0 cm 3 /s; low discharge-116 cm 3 /s; intermediate discharge-345 cm 3 /s; high discharge-450 cm 3 /s). We found that the number of foraging bouts was significantly (p