Crayfish plague: distribution and diversity of a high-impact invasive aquatic pathogen
Abstract: Crayfish plague, caused by a water mould (oomycete) Aphanomyces astaci, is a well-studied invasive disease of wildlife with substantial conservational and socioeconomic impact. Having stricken Europe already in the second half of 19th century, it has been substantially studied in the past, and became one of the best known diseases of aquatic invertebrates. Still, many aspects of A. astaci ecology and host-pathogen interactions are only being discovered in recent years. Original hosts of the crayfish plague pathogen are North American freshwater crayfish that are usually able to resist the infection without major symptoms or mortalities. Crayfish from other biogeographic regions (including Europe) are susceptible to the disease that often (but not always) wipes out their entire populations. Several North American invasive crayfish species are found in European waters, some of them in Berlin itself. In the talk, I will briefly summarize the history and present status of invasive crayfish in Europe. Afterwards, I will introduce the crayfish plague pathogen and its life cycle, and present some of the most interesting recent discoveries about its host range, diversity, distribution and impact facilitated by development of molecular tools (to which our group frequently contributed).
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