Mechanical male sterilisation in invasive signal crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus: persistence and functionality in captive and wild conditions

Abstract

Management control methods for invasive crayfish remain of limited effectiveness, resulting in ongoing invasions of high ecological impact. As management programmes integrating methods to limit juvenile recruitment could reduce population abundances, the efficacy of a sterile male release technique (SMRT) based on the manual removal of male gonopods was tested here in captive and wild conditions by comparing the survival, gonopod regeneration rates and a range of reproductive metrics of sterilised versus non-sterilised males. Sterilised male survival was high, with their removed gonopods regenerating at sizes that were always smaller than those of non-sterilised males. In captive trials, while sterilised males showed significantly lower areas of spermatophore cover than non-sterilised, and less accuracy in placement, subsequent female brood size did not differ significantly between the two male groups. The number of females retaining their clutches also did not also differ significantly between these groups. Over a seven-year period in the wild, there was no evidence suggesting SMRT significantly reduced female brood sizes and clutch retention rates. Although mechanical SMRT altered the size and delivery accuracy of sterilised male gonopods, female reproductive success of invasive crayfish was unaffected. Several potential reasons for this failure of the technique were identified and require further research.