A. ZAIKOV, I. PISKOV and I. ILIEV
Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture, BG-4003 Plovdiv, Bulgaria
A. ZAIKOV, I. PISKOV and I. ILIEV. 2010. Investigation on shelter competition between Narrow-Clawed crayfish Astacus leptodactylus (Esch.) and Noble crayfish Astacus astacus L. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 16: 369-375
The aim of this study was to investigate the competitive relations in the occupation of shelters between Astacus leptodactylus (Esch.) and Astacus astacus L. in laboratory conditions. A total of 240 crayfish were used in the experiment, including 120 individuals of each species and 60 individuals of each gender. Three different groups of experiments were conducted in order to fully investigate the shelter competition. The study shows that the species belonging of the individuals has a predominant significance in shelter occupation. In all variants investigated, the noble crayfish have a dominant position compared to the narrow-clawed crayfish, and gender and body weight of the specimen investigated has no effect in this regard.