Revealing the Shamefaced Crab Calappa granulata (Crustacea: Brachyura) from the Adriatic Sea, Northern Basin of the Mediterranean

Abstract

This study presents the first data on morphometry, length–weight relationship, diet, reproductive biology, epibionts and genetic identity of the shamefaced crab Calappa granulata from the central eastern Adriatic Sea. A total of 92 crabs were collected during 2011, 2014 and 2015, of which 64 were females and 28 were males. Overall, 11 morphometric characteristics were measured. Carapace length of sampled individuals ranged from 48.46 to 76.09 mm, and body weight from 47.06 to 221.39 g. The length–weight relationship showed negative allometry for males and isometric growth for females. Analysis of the stomach content revealed the crab’s preference for crustaceans (20.28%) and cephalopods (10.58%), less for fish (3.4%) and shellfish (0.28%). Size at first sexual maturity (CL50%) of 59.25 and 66.92 mm was estimated for males and females, respectively. Epibiotic serpulid polychaetes were recorded on the crab exoskeleton with an overall prevalence of 29.3%. Analyses of a partial sequence of mtCOI showed high haplotype (Hd = 0.964) and low nucleotide diversity (π = 0.00598). Phylogenetic inference and estimation of population differentiation (FST = 0.013, p = 0.271) with publicly available Mediterranean sequences currently imply one homogenous population unit. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first nucleotide sequences of C. granulata from the Adriatic Sea made publicly available.

The Role of Fauna in Seagrass Habitats

“…However, in areas vegetated by seagrass, megabioturbators may nevertheless cause week effects on seagrass growth possibly through altering infaunal community composition. Sphoeroides marmoratus invertivore benthopelagic (Rossi et al, 2017) Canthigaster capistrata invertivore benthopelagic (Ferreira et al, 2004;Clemente et al, 2010) Xyrichtys novacula invertivore benthopelagic (Castriota et al, 2005) Octopus vulgaris invertivore benthic (Smith, 2003) Diplodus cadenati omnivore benthopelagic (Pajuelo and Lorenzo, 2002) Synodus saurus piscivore burying (Esposito et al, 2009) Trachinus draco carnivore burying (Morte et al, 2001) Pagellus erythrinus omnivore benthopelagic (Fanelli et al, 2011) Sarpa salpa herbivore benthopelagic (Buñuel et al, 2020) Diplodus annularis omnivore benthopelagic (Pita et al, 2002) Lithognathus mormyrus carnivore benthopelagic (Kallianiotis et al, 2005) Sepia officinalis carnivore pelagic, burying (Castro and Guerra, 1989;Sturbois et al, 2022, Townsend andFonseca, 1998b) Bothus podas carnivore benthic (Esposito et al, 2010;Abid et al, 2013) Dasyatis pastinaca carnivore burying (Yeldan et al, 2009) Stephanolepis hispidus omnivore benthopelagic (Mancera-Rodríguez and Castro-Hernández, 2015) Pagellus erythrinus invertivore benthopelagic (Caragitsou and Papaconstantinou, 1988;Fanelli et al, 2011) Aulostomus strigosus carnivore benthopelagic (Luiz et al, 2008) Serranus cabrilla carnivore benthopelagic (Tuset, 1996) Cryptosoma cristatum omnivore benthic (González et al, 2000;Petrić et al,…”