Pea crabs

Transcript

PROFESSOR ANDREW JEFFS

So it sets up home inside the mussel and starts stealing that food that the mussel’s been gathering so diligently. The pea crab steps in there and grabs the meal before the mussel gets a chance to eat it. So that reduces the productivity of the mussel, and it also causes problems in terms of quality, because the last thing a consumer on the other side of the world who’s paid a lot of money to buy a high-quality farmed mussel from New Zealand wants to do is to bite into a crunchy crab in the middle of their meal.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Professor Andrew Jeffs and Oliver Trottier – Leigh Marine Laboratory, Auckland University.