Production and Population Dynamics of the Crayfish Orconectes virilis in Three Michigan Lakes

Abstract

Fluctuations in mortality rather than in growth rates produced most of the year-to-year differences in biomass accumulation of three different populations of the crayfish Orconectes virilis. Yearly biomass changes resulted from density-dependent control of mortality and fecundity during certain portions of the life cycle. Density-dependent changes in mortality rates controlled population size for adults in all lakes and for young-of-the-year in two of the three study lakes. Growth rates were much less responsive to fluctuating densities. Disparity between the number of ovarian and attached eggs increased as density of age I+ crayfish increased. This provided a strong density regulator on fecundity. Differences occurred in the number of recruits produced by a brood stock that survive to the end of the first growing season in the various lakes. Yet the number of females surviving to reproductive age 2 yr later was strongly regulated. Strong population regulation produced two female recruits of breeding age for every two–six parental breeding females. The high biomass and production levels of crayfish discovered in West Lost Lake in 1962–63 also occurred in the other area lakes. Higher but variable levels of recruitment resulted in larger standing crops and production in West Lost lake. This resulted from less effective density controls on the mortality rates of younger age-groups in that lake. Despite great variation in biomass of from 46 to 213 kg/ha and annual production from 60 to 142 kg/ha, the annual turnover ratio of the biomass was found to vary only between 0.94 and 1.53. Key words: crayfish, Orconectes virilis, population dynamics, annual production, Michigan lakes