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Geneticists unravel secrets of super-invasive crayfish

DNA analysis suggests the self-cloning species is a genetic hybrid that emerged in an aquarium in the 1990s.
  1. Ewen Callaway
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Molecular biologists have sequenced the genome of an invasive species of crayfish that can reproduce without mating and is spreading rapidly across Madagascar. The marbled crayfish (Procambarus virginalis) was first spotted in aquariums in Germany in the 1990s. Now, DNA sequencing suggests that the species is probably the product of two distantly related members of a different crayfish species, a team reported on 5 February in Nature Ecology and Evolution1.

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Nature 554, 157-158 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-01624-y

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 07 February 2018: This story incorrectly stated that Julie Jones was the first to identify marbled crayfish in Madagascar. In fact, Jones and her colleagues conducted the first survey of the species in Madagascar, shortly after another research team made the discovery.

References

  1. Gutekunst, J. et al. Nature Ecol. Evol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0467-9 (2018).

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  2. Martin, P. Thonagel, S. & Scholtz, G. J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Res. 54, 13–21 (2016).

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  3. Scholtz, G. et al. Nature 421, 806 (2003).

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  4. Jones, J P. G. et al. Biol. Invasions 11, 1475–1482 (2009).

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