Abstract
The genetic variation among nine populations of the red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii was examined using partial sequences of the mitochondrial COI gene. Three populations (Illinois and Louisiana, United States and northern Coahuila, Mexico) represented the native range and six populations came from areas where the species has been introduced (central Coahuila, southern Nuevo Leon, Durango, Chihuahua and Chiapas, Mexico, and Cartago, Costa Rica). A 689 bp fragment was amplified from 37 samples. Uncorrected genetic distances among sequences were p = 0 to 0.02031 and 12 haplotypes were found. A phylogenetic reconstruction shows that the three populations from the native range remain very similar to each other and some introduced populations can be directly associated to one of them. The populations from Nuevo Leon, central Coahuila and Costa Rica were the most divergent ones. Overall the genetic variation found in P. clarkii in both native and introduced populations is low.
Highlights
The impact of introduced crayfish on ecosystems, communities and native species has been widely recognized, with the loss of biodiversity being one of the most important effects (Harper et al 2002; Nystrom 2002; Rodríguez et al 2005)
The obtained results suggest that the three populations from the native range remain very similar to each other and some introduced populations can be directly associated to one of them
Chiapas could derive from Coahuila-north as both populations share the same haplotype; Durango could derive from Louisiana as the haplotypes from both are very similar and mingle in the same clade
Summary
The impact of introduced crayfish on ecosystems, communities and native species has been widely recognized, with the loss of biodiversity being one of the most important effects (Harper et al 2002; Nystrom 2002; Rodríguez et al 2005). Three species of crayfish have been reported as introduced and having established viable wild populations in Mexico: the red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii (Girard, 1852), the northern crayfish Orconectes virilis (Hagen, 1870) and the Australian red claw crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus (von Martens, 1868) (Campos and Contreras-Balderas 1985; Campos and Rodríguez-Almaraz 1992; Bortolini et al 2007). Native to northern Mexico, Procambarus clarkii has been introduced into other regions within Mexico in Durango, Sonora, Baja California and Chiapas (Hernández et al 2008; Alvarez et al 2011)
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