Blue crabs in the bay find green invaders delicious

The Chesapeake Bay has a long list of invaders that can't be turned back without significant human effort, including mute swans, snakeheads, nutria and phragmites.

But at least one of the nonnative species is being bounced from the bay by a homegrown carnivore.

Blue crabs have developed a taste for green crabs, keeping their population down, according to a study by scientists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater. Their results were published in the latest issue of the journal Ecology.

In one of a series of tests for the study, researchers put green and blue crabs in controlled...