Una experiencia de campo insuficiente reduce y sesga las capturas de cangrejo señal (Pacifastacus leniusculus Dana, 1852) y disminuye la eficacia de la gestión

Abstract

The option of employing non-experienced personnel is sometimes considered for population control management. Thisimplies a double assumption: that there is no interaction between the level of experience and the efficiency of the management and that the skills and field experience can be achieved promptly during the course of the campaign without affecting the yields. The phenology of the signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus Dana, 1852) is characterized by a summer peak activity. This moment coincides with the period in which the catching efforts should be maximized to increase overall effect on population. We evaluate whether an efficient control of an invading population ofsignal crayfish isfeasible with the participation of novice workers that acquire their field experience simultaneously. During the summers of 2009 (11 days), 2011 (4 days) and 2012 (23 days) the catches (quantitative and qualitative) of experienced workers was compared with those of novice (inexperienced) workers. Also, the existence of learning patterns during the studied periods was explored. Results show that during the studied periods new workers do not achieve the output of the experienced workers. They also show that novice workers do not achieve a sufficient learning level that may turn into a significantly higher output when compared with the experienced workers. Therefore, acquisition ofskillsto work on signal crayfish populations does not occur fast enough for making learning of novel workers compatible with an effective population management