The savory swimmer swims north : a northern range extension of the blue crab Callinectes sapidus?

• Published in: Journal of Crustacean Biology
• Main Author: Johnson, David S.
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Callinectes; Climate velocity; Decapod; Marine invasion; Savory; Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/7194

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Koninklijke Brill for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Crustacean Biology 35 (2015): 105-110, doi:10.1163/1937240X-00002293. Worldwide, climate-change is shifting species distributions poleward. Here I present recent (2012-2014) observations of the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, in the Gulf of Maine (GoM), north of its historical range of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. To test the hypothesis of a climate-driven range expansion, I examined near-surface ocean temperatures. On average, ocean temperatures in the GoM in summer 2012 and 2013 were up to 1.3°C higher than the average of the previous decade, suggesting that warmer waters may have promoted the recruitment of C. sapidus to the GoM. Previous ephemeral populations of C. sapidus in the Gulf of Maine have been reported since the 1860's. Recent observations and continued warming in the northwest Atlantic may signal a permanent poleward expansion of C. sapidus into the GoM. If so, then a key goal for ecologists and managers will be to understand the effect of C. sapidus on GoM food-webs and fisheries. This work was funded by NSF Grants No. 1354494 and 1238212. Additional support from the Northeast Climate Science Center, Grant No. DOI G12AC00001.