Anchor down or hunker down: an experimental study on zebra mussels’ response to predation risk from crayfish

Sedentary prey facing an acute predation risk: testing the hypothesis of inducible metabolite emission suppression in zebra mussels, Dreissena polymorpha

“…In marine bivalves, the presence of predation cues was found to reduce byssus production and mobility in Hormomya mutabilis (Ishida & Iwasaki, 2003), food intake in Mercenaria mercenaria (Smee & Weissburg, 2006) and respiration rates in Perumytilus purpuratus (Vial et al, 1992;Lopez et al, 1995). In zebra mussels, cues from injured conspecifics have been found to reduce mobility (Toomey et al, 2002;Czarnoleski et al, 2010b), clearance rates (Naddafi et al, 2007;Naddafi & Rudstam, 2014) and attachment strength (Czarnoleski et al, 2010b(Czarnoleski et al, , 2011, and to bias filter-feeding towards easy-to-digest foods (Naddafi et al, 2007). In our experiments, the degree of aggregation and attachment strength of zebra mussels were not significantly affected by the treatment conditions.…”

“…It is unlikely that the responses predicted by the HIMES are effective against bird predation, but they should be effective in confrontations with other predators, such as crustaceans and fish, which have the physiological capacity to localize zebra mussels based on chemical information (Atema, 1980;Hara, 1994;Lee & Meyers, 1996). In fact, experiments on crayfish show that these predators use chemical detection to sense dead (Hazlett, 1994) and living zebra mussels (Czarnoleski et al, 2011). Similar information on fish, and especially quantitative data on the links between metabolic suppression and predation rates, are completely lacking, but we hope that our results will stimulate future research in this area.…”

“…The byssus of zebra mussels has been shown to reduce the risk of dislodgement by predatory fish (Kobak & Kakareko, 2011), suggesting that strengthening the byssal attachment might be a crucial part of an inducible defence strategy in this species. Surprisingly, experiments on zebra mussels found two contradictory patterns: the presence of non-feeding roach increased the strength of byssal attachments (Kobak et al, 2010), but the presence of crushed conspecifics (Czarnoleski et al, 2010b) or crayfish fed conspecific mussels (Czarnoleski et al, 2011) resulted in weaker byssal attachments. Czarnoleski et al (2011) speculated that cues about the presence of fish and the presence of injured conspecifics might indicate two different threats.…”

“…Surprisingly, experiments on zebra mussels found two contradictory patterns: the presence of non-feeding roach increased the strength of byssal attachments (Kobak et al, 2010), but the presence of crushed conspecifics (Czarnoleski et al, 2010b) or crayfish fed conspecific mussels (Czarnoleski et al, 2011) resulted in weaker byssal attachments. Czarnoleski et al (2011) speculated that cues about the presence of fish and the presence of injured conspecifics might indicate two different threats. The presence of a predatory fish in the absence of signs of crushed zebra mussels signals a predator that is not currently preying upon conspecifics, which suggests that such a predator does not impose an immediate danger (e.g.…”

Anti-predatory responses of the thick shell mussel Mytilus coruscus exposed to seawater acidification and hypoxia

“…When energy supply is limited by environmental stress, byssus thread production has to compete with other physiological processes for energy. For instance, the zebra mussels, Dreissena polymorpha reduce their feeding when they detect their predator (Czarnoleski et al, 2011), and the mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis under wave exposure produce thicker and stronger byssus threads at the cost of lower growth and gonadal condition (Babarro and Carrington, 2013). If energy allocation to byssus thread production remains unchanged under some stressors, i.e., hypoxia and OA, there is a disproportionate decrease in energy supply for other physiological processes.…”