Geographical expansion of a nonindigenous crab, Carcinus maenas (L.), along the Nova Scotian shore into the southeastern Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada

The European green crab, Carcinus maenas, was first observed in the western Atlantic in the 19th century (from New Jersey to Massachusetts, USA). A northward expansion along the coast of New England has been observed in the first half of the second century. The green crab was observed in Canadian waters in Passamoquoddy Bay in 1951. The species has gradually invaded the Bay of Fundy in the 1950s, and the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia from the 1960s to the mid 1990s, and reached the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence in the mid 1990s. Further westward expansion in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence has been confirmed along the eastern coast of Prince Edward Island in 1997 and more recently in the Northumberland Strait at the border between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.