Presentation Abstract
Biological invasions are known to impact important nearshore habitats. Though European green crab, Carcinus maenas, has been periodically abundant in coastal embayments of Washington State and Vancouver island since the late 1990’s, range expansion into the Salish Sea in recent years has the potential for more destructive impacts and dynamics. In the Salish Sea, green crab pose a threat to essential eelgrass beds, tidal marshes, and mudflats. Management of green crab occurs at a regional scale, but control actions to mitigate impacts and protect habitats take place at the local (site) level. It can be a challenge to integrate place-based specific management needs across geographic scales and political jurisdictions and create a regional management framework sufficiently agile to respond to on-the-ground changes at meaningful timescales. This session will draw from several locally-based response efforts to the unfolding invasion of green crab in Washington and British Columbia. Panelists will highlight how knowledge transfer and collaboration can develop across multiple scales of management and can shift over time to build regional response capacity among institutions. This can enable a robust and responsive regional strategy, rooted in effective communication and data sharing.
Session Title
Collaboration to Address Invasive European Green Crab (Panel)
Conference Track
SSE6: Human-Nature Systems
Conference Name
Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2022 : Online)
Document Type
Event
SSEC Identifier
SSE-panels-463
Start Date
26-4-2022 9:45 AM
End Date
26-4-2022 11:15 AM
Rights
Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author's written permission.
Type
Text
Language
English
From Site to Sea: Protecting Habitat Through an Integrated Response to the Invasive European Green Crab Across the Salish Sea
Biological invasions are known to impact important nearshore habitats. Though European green crab, Carcinus maenas, has been periodically abundant in coastal embayments of Washington State and Vancouver island since the late 1990’s, range expansion into the Salish Sea in recent years has the potential for more destructive impacts and dynamics. In the Salish Sea, green crab pose a threat to essential eelgrass beds, tidal marshes, and mudflats. Management of green crab occurs at a regional scale, but control actions to mitigate impacts and protect habitats take place at the local (site) level. It can be a challenge to integrate place-based specific management needs across geographic scales and political jurisdictions and create a regional management framework sufficiently agile to respond to on-the-ground changes at meaningful timescales. This session will draw from several locally-based response efforts to the unfolding invasion of green crab in Washington and British Columbia. Panelists will highlight how knowledge transfer and collaboration can develop across multiple scales of management and can shift over time to build regional response capacity among institutions. This can enable a robust and responsive regional strategy, rooted in effective communication and data sharing.
