Originally this story Appears on Guardians and be part of Climate table cooperation.
Small, bluish-gray and speckled, the marbled crayfish is easy to miss. Except for the fact that it’s likely coming to a pond or river near you—if it isn’t there already. The all-female freshwater crustacean has become the focus of scientists’ attention in recent years, due to its unique abilities among crustaceans — the family that includes shrimp, crab, and lobster. — self-replicating and quickly adapting to new environments, as well as the fact that it has spread exponentially.
The marbled crayfish was first recognized in 1995, when a biology student purchased a bag of crayfish – sold to him as “Texas Crayfish” – from American traders at a zoo darling in Frankfurt. After they began to burden their new owners due to their inexplicably fast breeding rate, he distributed them to friends who, in turn, dumped them in rivers, lakes, and toilets. , from there they spread rapidly throughout Germany, much of the mainland. Europe, and most especially, the island Madagascar, which has a unique but extremely delicate freshwater ecosystem.
When Frank Lyko, professor of epigenetics in Germany Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), first found the organism, called marmorkrebs, he was amazed at their ability to clone from a single cell, like cancerous tumors, and considered them an ideal model to study.
“All marbled crayfish share the same genome,” he said on a video call from his office in Heidelberg. “But they also adapt to a variety of environments and do it in a hurry, which makes them scientifically remarkable and similar to a tumor, which also adapts to its environment. .”
Lyko takes the lead ambitious genomic research which makes for the extraordinary fact that all marbled crayfish are descended from a single female. They reproduce without sex through parthenogenesis. In 2015, he gave the species name to all-female crustaceans Procambarus virginalis.
During her research, Lyko recalls driving with her students to a lake about 15 minutes from his lab. Torchbearers and waders and ankle-deep in the water, “we waited until it was dark, and then suddenly they surfaced with hundreds of thousands of them,” he said. “With hand nets, we caught them from behind and put them in buckets. It is interesting. Right after that, we started experimenting with eating them and found them to be quite tasty.”
“The more we eat, the better”
In Germany, where marbled crayfish have infiltrated lakes and rivers, authorities have adopted a rigorous approach to them.
Klaus Hidde, a retired banker turned fisherman, was commissioned last year by the environment department of the Berlin senate to set traps for the crayfish, which were found in two lakes on the northern edge. west of Berlin. Not only are crayfish at risk of killing native species, he said, “but they can also carry the so-called crayfish plague,” referring to a fungal disease that has more or less wiped out the successful crayfish market. brilliant work in Europe. 150 years ago.
