Eriocheir sinensis

• Overview
• Interesting Facts
• Common Names
• Description
• Biology
• Taxonomy
• Similar Species
• More Info
• Further Reading
• Notes

Overview

Crustacean. This migrating crab is native to Asia and has invaded Europe and now North America. It contributes to local extinction of native invertebrates, modifies habitats due to burrowing activities and costs industries (e.g. fishing and aquaculture) several 100,000s of dollars per year. Its burrowing behavior causes bank erosion. Crabs have been used as bait for eel fishing, to produce fish meal , cosmetic products and as fertilizer in agriculture.The Chinese mitten crab supports a $1.25 billion per annum aquaculture industry in China (Herborg et al. 2005 In Press ).

Interesting Facts

Common Names

Description

Family Grapsidae

Carapace almost rectangular, with distinct teeth on the lateral margins ; free-living.

Physical Description

Habitat

Eriocheir sinensis tolerates a wide range of abiotic factors . All three regions of the world in which E. sinensis occur exhibit a temperate climate; however, the temperature range mitten crabs encounter within these regions is large, and laboratory studies underscore the crab’s ability to tolerate a wide range of temperatures. The Chinese mitten crab has exhibited a remarkable ability to survive in highly modified aquatic habitats , as it encounters highly altered and polluted waters in many parts of its native and introduced ranges (Rudnick A. Deborah et al., 2003).

Typically found at an altitude of 0 to 197 meters (0 to 646 feet).[1]

Ecology: Introduced populations of the Chinese mitten crab have caused several economic and ecological impacts . Commercial and recreational fishing operations have been hindered due to bait stealing and damage to gear and the catch by the crab (Panning 1939; Rudnick and Resh 2002). In California, the mitten crab has also interfered with operations at federal and state water diversion plants ; in years with high abundances of crabs, large numbers of downstream-migrating mitten crabs have become trapped in holding tanks meant to keep fish out of turbines, and have caused high fish mortalities and high costs associated with preventing the crab's entry (Siegfried 1999). Juvenile E. sinensis form dense colonies of burrows in the intertidal portions of streams , and this process has undermined the integrity of stream banks and levees in Europe and the US (Peters and Panning 1933; Dutton and Conroy 1998; Rudnick et al. 2003). The mitten crab likely impacts freshwater and estuarine food webs at many levels, as it has an opportunistic diet that includes algae, detritus , and a variety of benthic macroinvertebrates (Panning 1939; Hoestlandt 1948; Gollasch 1999; Rudnick et al. 2003). These impacts have been, and likely will continue to be, exacerbated by population explosions such as was seen in 1998 in San Francisco Bay ; similar population explosions have been reported from European countries (Panning 1939a; Gollasch 1999).

Biology

Reproduction

Sexual, modulated by water temperature .

A catadromous species, the adults migrate downstream to reproduce in the brackish waters of estuaries. The females carry 250,000 to 1 million eggs until hatching , and both sexes die soon after reproduction . After a 1-2 month period as planktonic larvae, the small juvenile crabs settle out in salt or brackish water in late spring , then migrate, often long distances , to freshwater to rear . In China's Yangtze River , mitten crabs have been reported 800 miles upstream from the Yellow Sea (Washington Sea Grant Program, 2000).Mitten crabs have been reported to take between 1 and 5 years to attain sexual maturity, with shorter time frames reported from aquacultured populations in southern China (Zhang et al. 2001), and longer time periods of 4-5 years reported from Germany (Panning 1939).Mitten crabs are adept walkers on land , and if blocked by dams, weirs or other obstructions during their migration, move readily across banks or levees to bypass them. In Germany, large numbers of mitten crabs left the water at night when they encountered an obstruction, and occasionally wandered the streets and entered houses. In California, mitten crabs have been found on roads and airport runways, in parking lots , yards and swimming pools .

Taxonomy

Notes

Name Status: Accepted Name .

Last scrutiny: 02-Feb-2005

Similar Species

Members of the genus Eriocheir

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 1 species and subspecies in this genus:

E. sinensis (Chinese Mitten Crab)

More Info

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Further Reading

• A biology of Crustacea. Chicago, Quadrangle Books[1961] url p. 136, p. 145, p. 152, p. 174.
• Amino acid pools: distribution, formation and function of free amino acids; proceedings. Edited by Joseph T. Holden. Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Washington, D.C., under the auspices of the Institute for A[d]vanced Learning in the Medical Sciences. Amsterdam, Elsevier Pub. Co.1962. url p. 161.
• Animal hormones; a comparative survey. With a foreword by John E. Harris. Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1962-[70] url p. 201, p. 262, p. 279.
• Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, -1965. url p. 362.
• Biology of the seas of the U.S.S.R. Translated by S. Botcharskaya. New York, Interscience Publishers[1963] url p. 312, p. 313, p. 332, p. 913.
• British journal of entomology and natural history. [London]: British Entomological and Natural History Society, 1988- url p. 81.
• Comparative animal physiology, by David W. Bishop [and others] Philadelphia, Saunders, 1950. url p. 264, p. 266, p. 28.
• Current bibliography for aquatic sciences and fisheries. London, Taylor & Francis ltd. url p. 116, p. 213, p. 265, p. 330, p. 365, p. 51, p. 583, p. 89.
• Entomological news. [Philadelphia]American Entomological Society, 1925- url p. 535, p. 536.
• Ionic and osmotic regulation, metabolic response to salinity, and physiological response to pesticides of juvenile Callinectes Sapidus Rathbun. 1974. url p. 56.
• Occasional papers of the California Academy of Sciences. San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences, url p. 169.
• Oceanography; invited lectures presented at the International Oceanographic Congress held in New York, 31 August-12 September 1959. Edited by Mary Sears. Washington, 1961. url p. 474.
• Oceanology: biology of the ocean. M.E. Vinogradov, editor in chief; Albert L. Peabody, translator. Woods Hole, Mass.: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Fisheries Center, 1985. url p. 396, p. 401.
• Oceanus. Woods Hole, Mass., Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution url p. 51.
• Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Washington, Biological Society of Washington url p. 400, p. 401, p. 647, p. 648.
• Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. Sydney, Linnean Society of New South Wales. url , .
• Proceedings of the National Shellfisheries Association. Plymouth, Mass., Published for the National Shellfisheries Association by MPG Communications. url p. 12.
• Recent advances in invertebrate physiology; a symposium sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Tektronix Foundation [and] the University of Oregon. Bradley T. Scheer, editor; Theodore H. Bullock, Lewis H. Kleinholz [and] Arthur W. Martin, associate editors. Eugene, University of Oregon Publications, 1957. url p. 215, p. 216, p. 224, p. 225, p. 234, p. 245.
• Recent developments in cell physiology / Edited by J. A. Kitching. New York: Academic Press, 1954. url , p. 15, p. 17, p. 20, p. 26.
• Smithsonian miscellaneous collections. 81 1929 Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1862-1968. url p. 73, p. 75.
• Smithsonian scientific series. New York: Smithsonian Institution Series, Inc., [1929]-32. url p. 187, p. 239.
• Standard values in nutrition and metabolism, being the second fascicle of a handbook of biological data. Prepared under the direction of the Committee on the Handbok of Biological Data, American Institute of Biological Sciences, National Research Council. Philadelphia, Saunders[1954] url p. 371.
• The Biological bulletin. Woods Hole, Mass.: Marine Biological Laboratory, url , p. 125, p. 142, p. 142, p. 166, p. 169, p. 182, p. 185, p. 221, p. 248, p. 254, p. 260, p. 281, p. 282, p. 294, p. 314, p. 342, p. 35, p. 365, p. 37, p. 40, p. 417, p. 47, p. 515, p. 87, p. 93, p. 94, p. 95.
• The Canadian field-naturalist. Ottawa, Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club. url p. 429, p. 654, p. 656, p. 91.
• The biology of marine animals. New York, Interscience Publishers[1960] url p. 196, p. 303, p. 48, p. 690, p. 79.
• The chemistry and mode of action of plant growth substances; proceedings of a symposium held at Wye College, University of London, July 1955. Edited by R.L. Wain and F. Wightman. London, Butterworths Scientific Publications, 1956. url p. 291.
• The comparative physiology of respiratory mechanisms. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania press[1959, c1941] url p. 155.
• The lipids, their chemistry and biochemistry. New York, Interscience Publishers, 1951-57. url p. 630, p. 993.
• The vitamins: chemistry, physiology, pathology. Edited by W. H. Sebrell, Jr. [and] Robert S. Harris. New York, Academic Press, 1954. url p. 151.
• Tulane studies in zoology. 3 1955 New Orleans: Tulane University, 1953-1968. url p. 103, p. 115.
• World directory of hydrobiological and fisheries institutions. Washington, D.C.: American Institute of Biological Sciences, 1963. url p. 60.
• Zoological results of a tour in the Far East / edited by N. Annandale. Calcutta, Printed at the Baptist Mission Press, and published by the Asiatic Society, 1916-19. url p. 222, p. 231, p. 232, p. 242.

Notes

Contributors

• Bisby, F.A., Y.R. Roskov, M.A. Ruggiero, T.M. Orrell, L.E. Paglinawan, P.W. Brewer, N. Bailly, J. van Hertum, eds (2007). Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life: 2007 Annual Checklist. Species 2000: Reading, U.K.
• Brands, S.J. (comp.) 1989-present. The Taxonomicon. Universal Taxonomic Services, Zwaag, The Netherlands. Accessed January 10, 2012.
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Accessed March 05, 2008. http://www.gbif.org Mediated distribution data from 7 providers.
• ISSG Global Invasive Species Database (http://www.issg.org/database)
• National Invasive Species Information Center, National Agricultural Library, United States Department of Agriculture. Web Site. Accessed May 3, 2008.
• Ruggiero M., Gordon D., Bailly N., Kirk P., Nicolson D. (2011). The Catalogue of Life Taxonomic Classification, Edition 2, Part A. In: Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life: 2011 Annual Checklist (Bisby F.A., Roskov Y.R., Orrell T.M., Nicolson D., Paglinawan L.E., Bailly N., Kirk P.M., Bourgoin T., Baillargeon G., Ouvrard D., eds). DVD; Species 2000: Reading, UK.

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal March 05, 2008:

• GBIF-Sweden: Invertebrates (GBIF-SE:SMNH)
• Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University: Biogeography Scheldt Estuary
• Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University: Historical hyperbenthos data (1987-2001) from the North Sea and some adjacent areas
• Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University: MarBEF Publication Series data
• Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University: Taxonomic Information Sytem for the Belgian coastal area
• Institute of Nature Conservation PAS: IAS
• National Museum of Natural History: NMNH Invertebrate Zoology Collections
• NLBIF: Limnodata
• Senckenberg: Collection Crustacea
• UK National Biodiversity Network: Marine Biological Association - Marine Life Survey Data (collected by volunteers) collated by MarLIN
• UK National Biodiversity Network: Marine Conservation Society - Seasearch Marine Surveys

Identifiers

• Biodiversity Heritage Library NamebankID: 2708006
• Catalogue of Life Accepted Name Code: ITS-99058
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility Taxonkey: 5213960
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) Taxonomic Serial Number (TSN): 99058
• Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 17527

Footnotes

1. Mean = 10.980 meters (36.024 feet), Standard Deviation = 42.740 based on 42 observations. Altitude information for each observation from British Oceanographic Data Centre. [back]

©2004-2012 David Stang. All rights reserved.