Chris Robles Block 1: Environmental Systems April 27, 2012

Texas Invasive Species: Asian Tiger Shrimp

The Asian Tiger Shrimp, or Penaeus monodon, is naturally found in Indo-Western-Pacific oceans including East Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Australia. Growing up to an average of 30-centimeters in length and 320 grams in weight, the Tiger Shrimp was introduced into the United States in the 1970s and 80s as an effort to farm them, but the attempt to farm them was soon given up as there was no large successful harvest, the Tiger Shrimp then disappeared in 1991, but made a come-back in June of 2005 after Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. The Tiger Shrimp is now seen along the coast of the United States from North Carolina all the way to Mexico. With no natural predators along the U.S. coast, the Tiger Shrimp has increased its population by at least ten-fold from 2010 to 2011. The Tiger Shrimp is known for eating other Tiger Shrimp after they have molted, they are also eat small crabs, shrimp, bivalves and gastropods. The environment is always changing, populations are always growing, which makes a need for species to come in and lower the populations of other species, which means the environment needs invasive species at some point in time. The fact that the Tiger Shrimp has no natural predator and is on average over a foot in length is keeping the population from decreasing. Even though the Tiger Shrimp is an aggressive-predator, it is easily susceptible to a number of viral diseases that it can transfer to the native marine life around it. The Tiger Shrimp has had an unknown impact on the coastal marine life, mainly because we do not know how long it has actually been there or how many there are. There are no steps being taken to eliminate the Tiger Shrimp, mainly because it doesnt have a real impact on us,

Chris Robles Block 1: Environmental Systems April 27, 2012 which means we can do nothing to prevent the further spread of it. I choose to do the Asian Tiger Shrimp because it was on a list of the top ten invasive species of Texas.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/04/26/Cannibal-shrimp-in-US-waters-a-worry/UPI40211335485200/ http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=1209 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penaeus_monodon