Question: hello im leah, What made you decide you want to study crayfish and if you won the money how would you make more people aware of crayfish?

Zara Gladman answered on 16 Jun 2011:

Hiya leah 🙂

I decided to study crayfish because….

1. They’re very interesting animals… there are over 600 species in the world, in all shapes and sizes, from the tiny, to the giant (check out the Giant Tasmanian crayfish: ). They come in all different colours, some are actually quite pretty (e.g. ). Crayfish eat lots of different things, from fish eggs, plants, bugs and dead leaves… to each other! They’re cannibals! They also live in a range of freshwater ecosystems, including ponds, rivers and lakes. Which is great for me, because I get to visit some very beautiful places to study them! e.g. Loch Ken, in the south of Scotland:

2. The second reason I study crayfish is because some species – including the American signal crayfish, which is my main research topic – are causing a lot of problems here in the UK. The American crayfish was imported to the UK in the 1970s and has spread all over the place. It competes with other animals, like fish. It also eats our native plants and animals! Not only that – crayfish build burrows in the banks of rivers… this makes the river bank very unstable and sometimes it will collapse. Unstable riverbanks are dangerous for humans and livestock (like cows and sheep) to walk along.

My research is aiming to look at how non-native crayfish from America will affect our British wildlife. Hopefully I’ll find some answers 🙂

Right… second question! If I won the money, how would I make people aware of crayfish… well, I already do some stuff to make people aware of them. I’ve visited schools where I’ve given presentations and spoken to schoolchildren. I’ve also spoken at conferences to other scientists. I’ve been in newspaper articles and there have also been crayfish stories in the news, like on the BBC. The more people know about crayfish, the better!

If I was to win the money, I would keep doing the public awareness stuff that I already do.. BUT I would also use the money to help young people get interested in science and ecology. I’d like to help them do a conservation project on a species of fish – the brown trout – by giving them a batch of eggs to look after and learn about. In the wild, lots of trout eggs die or are eaten – crayfish, for example, eat fish eggs! By keeping the eggs safe in the classroom, kids will be doing their bit to conserve fish. After hatching, we’d release the healthy young fish into the river, and celebrate! 🙂 If you want more information, I’ve written a bit on my profile page.