News Ecosystems

Bivalve Takeover: Once-benign clams boom after crab influx

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

In a rare analysis of one marine invader benefiting an earlier arrival, an ecologist says that European green crabs invading a California bay have triggered a population explosion of a previously marginal clam.

INDIRECT INFLUENCE. By feasting on native clams, the European green crab, a worrisome invader in its own right, triggered a population explosion in a clam that had invaded earlier.