Habitat‐specific shape variation in the carapace of the crab Cyrtograpsus angulatus

Abstract

Different environmental and sex conditions induce phenotypic responses (behavioural, morphological and physiological) in many species. The crab Cyrtograpsus angulatus inhabits contrasting intertidal habitats, such as rocky shores and salt marshes, where they are exposed to a wide diversity of predators. However, their anti-predator responses differ substantially between these two habitats: while crabs in the salt marshes use or built burrows or they simply hide by burying in the sediment into the tidal channels, on rocky shores they find shelter below rocks, inside crevices or under seaweeds in tidal pools. Considering that refuges in salt marshes can be adjusted by the crabs according to their size and the morphology, while in rocky shores they have to fit in the available refuges, we expect that the body shape differs between individuals from each intertidal habitat. In order to test this hypothesis, we collected male and female crabs from a salt marsh and a rocky shore, separated by 3 km, in San José Gulf, Patagonia, and compared the carapace shapes using geometric morphometric methods. The results showed that carapace shape variation is explained by the interaction between sex and habitats. In both sexes, the mean carapace shape on the rocky shore is more slender and more lengthened than in the salt marsh individuals. Furthermore, the posterior margin of the female carapaces was wider than that of male carapaces, which were slender and more rounded posterolaterally, independent of the intertidal habitat.

Geometric morphometric analysis of the freshwater prawn Macrobrachium borellii (Decapoda: Palaemonidae) at a microgeographical scale in a floodplain system

“…Thus, GM could be a good tool for comparing populations of crustacean decapods. Previous studies have used GM to compare populations of several species of freshwater decapods (Giri and Collins 2004;Giri and Loy 2008;Barrı´a et al 2011;Idaszkin et al 2013). However, the use of GM to study prawns is still rare (Bissaro et al 2012;Zimmermann et al 2012).…”

Morfogeometría del caparazón del cangrejo Damithrax spinosissimus (Decapoda: Mithracidae) en tres islas del Caribe suroccidental

“…forma y comportamiento de los adultos (Hartnoll, 1978;Anger, 1983;Pardo et al, 1997;Petriella & Boshi, 1997;Haye, Salinas, Acuña, & Poulin, 2010). Los cambios fenotípicos en respuesta a la heterogeneidad ambiental parecen ser un mecanismo generalizado en cangrejos ya que han sido descritos en otras especies como Carcinus maenas (Silva et al, 2010), Cyrtograpsus affinis (Lezcano et al, 2012) y Cyrtograpsus angulatus (Idaszkin et al, 2014).…”

“…Este método se ha utilizado para estudiar varias estructuras anatómicas en crustáceos, incluyendo el caparazón, en especies como Liocarcinus depuratus (Rufino, Abelló, & Yule, 2004), Petrolisthes galathinus (Hiller, Kraus, Almon, & Werding, 2006), Agononida longipes, Munida flinti, Munidopsis riveroi (Bermúdez, 2007), Carcinus maenas (Ledesma, van der Molen, & Barón, 2010;Silva, Alves, Paula, & Hawkins, 2010), Aegla marginata (Trevisan, Zanetti-Marochi, Costa, Santos, & Masunari, 2012), Cyrtograpsus affinis (Lezcano, González-José, Spivak, & Dellatorre, 2012) y Cyrtograpsus angulatus (Idaszkin, Márquez, & Nocera, 2014), entre otros.…”

Variación fenotípica de la langosta espinosa Panulirus argus (Decapoda: Paniluridae) en el Caribe Suroccidental

“…En su conjunto, estos estudios han mostrado que las langostas pueden exhibir dimorfismo sexual, alometría, diferencias inter-poblacionales y plasticidad fenotípica. Hallazgos similares se han encontrado en estudios morfométricos de otros crustáceos tales como Aegla marginata (Trevisan et al, 2012), Austropotamobius pallipes (Bertocchi, Brusconi, Gherardi, Buccianti, & Scalici, 2008), Carcinus maenas (Ledesma, Van der Molen, & Barón , 2010;Silva, Alves, Paula, & Hawkins, 2010;Souza , Ilarri, Campos, Marques, & Martins, 2011), Cyrtograpsus affinis (Lezcano, Gonzá-lez, Spivak, & Dellatorre, 2012), Cyrtograpsus angulatus (Idaszkin, Márquez, & Nocera, 2013), Liocarcinus depurator (Rufino, Abelló, & Yule, 2004;Guerao & Abelló, 2011), Munida gregaria (Pérez-Barros, Calcagno, & Lovrich, 2011), Munida rugosa (Claverie & Smith, 2010) y Ucides cordatus (Alencar, Lima-Filho, Molina, & Freire. 2014), entre otros.…”