The Effects of Temperature on Intraspecific Aggression on Procambarus clarkii

CREVELING 35

Climate change has caused global water temperatures to be on the rise, especially in Southern California’s streams. Published studies analyzed the aggression of aquatic species when the water temperatures rise, and in most of the studies aggression is linear with temperature (McLarney et al., 1970) . Studying this trend is especially important in invasive species that may cause havoc within the ecosystems that they are introduced. Procambarus clarkii, or more commonly known as the Red Swamp Crayfish, is one of the most widespread invasive species in the world (Loureiro, Tainã Gonçalves et al., 2015). They are also known to heavily disrupt the ecosystems that they are introduced to due to their innate aggression and opportunistic omnivorous natures (Kats, 2003). For this study we measured the intraspecific aggression between P. Clarkii in a temperature of 23 C and a temperature of 10 C. We found that the crayfish in the experiment were significantly more aggressive in the colder temperature than in the warmer temperature.