Quantifying the exploratory behaviour ofAmphibalanus amphitritecyprids

Abstract

The behavioural response of cypris larvae from A. amphitrite (=Balanus amphitrite) exploring three model glass surfaces is quantified by close-range microscopy. Step length and step duration measurements reveal a response to both surface properties and flow. Without flow, 2-day-old cyprids took larger steps with shorter step duration on hydrophilic glass surfaces (bare and NH2-treated) vs hydrophobic glass (CH3-treated). These parameters suggest a more detailed, local inspection of hydrophobic surfaces and a more extensive exploration for hydrophilic surfaces. Cyprids under flow took longer steps and exhibited shorter probing times on hydrophobic glass. On hydrophilic glass, cyprids increased their step duration under flow. This active response is attributed to drag and lift forces challenging the cyprids' temporary anchoring to the substratum. Seven-day-old cyprids showed almost no discrimination between the model surfaces. Microscopic-scale observation of cyprid exploration is expected to provide new insights into interactions between cyprids and surfaces.

Biochemistry of Barnacle Adhesion: An Updated Review

“…and physicochemical properties, e.g., surface textures (Berntsson et al, 2000;Aldred et al, 2010;Chaw et al, 2011), hydrophobicity (Chaw and Birch, 2009;Phang et al, 2009;Guo et al, 2014), surface energy, and charge (Petrone et al, 2011;Di Fino et al, 2014) were also found to influence cyprid surface exploration. Using more complex video-/tracking-based approaches, the dynamic cyprid surface exploration process under different conditions was also monitored, offering a real-time and quantitative method of understanding the settling behaviors of a cyprid by measuring its swimming velocity, step length and duration, body movements, footprint deposition, and so on (Marechal et al, 2004;Andersson et al, 2009;Chaw and Birch, 2009;Maleschlijski et al, 2012;Aldred et al, 2013bAldred et al, , 2018Maleshlijski et al, 2016).…”

Surface Sensing and Settlement Strategies of Marine Biofouling Organisms

“…Especially the shorter steps can be connected with the requirement to re-generate surface contacts more frequently as the temporary anchoring point is challenged by the presence of shear. It was also found that behavior of cyprids depended on the age and discrimination power between hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces is lost when older cyprids are used [103].…”

“…In turn, the step duration is longer on the hydrophilic surfaces than on the hydrophilic ones. Consequently, the longer step duration and shorter steps leads to a slower motion on the hydrophobic surfaces, while the opposite is observed for the hydrophilic coatings [103]. If a water flow is applied and shear forces are present, cyprids actively respond by altering their exploration behavior [103].…”

“…Tracking of cyprids under flow allowed to understand the influence of the surface properties on exploration under dynamic conditions [103]. As cyprids use antennules to attach, detach, and reattach to surfaces, Chaw and Birch evaluated the ''walking'' behavior of Amphibalanus amphitrite by measuring the step length and the duration required to carry the steps out.…”

Classification of the pre-settlement behaviour of barnacle cyprids

“…An understanding of this behaviour is not only important to population and community dynamics [14], but also to the development of novel methods to interfere with and inhibit the settlement of cyprids [15]. The desire to understand the surface selection strategies of cyprids has led to development of two-dimensional video tracking methods to quantify cyprid motions [14,[16][17][18][19][20][21] and novel surface-sensitive imaging techniques [22,23]. Two-dimensional tracking was used previously to identify motion patterns of cyprids inspecting substrata [10,14,[16][17][18]20,21,24].…”