Widespread recycling of processed cDNAs in dinoflagellates

a boom in a wild population, although with some unintended consequences: As a way to feed the Soviet Union’s growing northern population, king crabs native to the North Pacific were introduced into the Barents Sea in the 1960s. Now thriving, this population has been welcomed by the fishing industry, as these crabs are a profitable catch. Unfortunately, these crabs are also ravenous omnivores and have few natural predators in these waters. Their feeding activities strip bare huge swaths of seabed, depleting capelin and cod stocks by consumption of the fishes’ eggs and competition for food. The king crabs are steadily making their way south towards European waters and despite short-term benefits damage to fisheries in the long term seems likely. Other crustacean species have also become invasive, including Chinese mitten crabs, which have spread through the ballast water of ships, and the crayfish Procambarus clarkii, a native of the US Gulf Coast, that has displaced many other crayfish from their habitats. The recent finding of a parthenogenetic crayfish strain in the aquarium trade also poses a potential threat if it makes its way into the wild. Crustaceans are clearly a remarkable group of organisms with a long evolutionary history and remarkable adaptability. Given their primarily aquatic habitats, however, they are not as well studied as their terrestrial arthropod relatives, but our knowledge of their diversity, behavior, development, and physiology is growing rapidly.