Male Nepinnotheres novaezelandiae squeezing in between the valves of a mussel. From video here. |
Once outside, the male pea crab faces even more challenges. These tiny crustaceans, which are more accustom to a cosy life inside a shellfish, have to cross the treacherous, open areas of the mussel bed, filled with horrible monsters (in the form of predators like fish, octopus, and larger crustaceans) for which an exposed pea crab is just a convenient snack. Furthermore, male crabs only make up 20% of the population despite the more or less equal sex ratio of immature pea crabs. The length that they have to go to just to find a mate probably has something to do with that...
Despite the odds, almost 90% of all female crabs in the population carry fertilised eggs, so some male crabs must be having successes - but how?
The researchers who conducted this study noticed that the male pea crabs always set out under the cover of darkness when they will be less likely to be spotted by predators, and also because mussels are more relaxed at night. From the researchers' perspective, this also means that all the experiments and observation of pea crab behaviour had to be done in the dark. So in addition to sea water tanks, they set up some infra-red cameras to capture footages of all this activity - like some kind of voyeuristic shellfish reality TV show.
So what would coax a male crab out of his cosy home? To find out, the researchers constructed a flow-through observation chamber lined with PVC tubes in which they placed pea crab-infected mussels. When they placed a mussel with a female crab upstream of one with a male pea crab, the male crab would exit their host 60% of the time, roused into action by something which seem to secreted by the mussel (or the female crab in the mussel) upstream.
Male Nepinnotheres novaezelandiae tickling the mantle edge of a mussel. From videos here. |
Additionally, in a different flow-through seawater tank where the crabs were given more freedom to roam from one host to another, the researchers recorded how long it took for the male pea crab to leave its host and reach a mussel containing a female crab. The entire journey from exiting the original host mussel to reaching their final destination took seven hours on average, though this varies from a quick hour-and-a-half jolt, to an eighteen-and-a-half hour-long trek for one particularly unfortunate individual.
So when love (or at least lust) is in the water, the pea crab will give up the easy life, and risk life and limbs for an evening rendezvous.
Reference:
Trottier, O., & Jeffs, A. G. (2015). Mate locating and access behaviour of the parasitic pea crab, Nepinnotheres novaezelandiae, an important parasite of the mussel Perna canaliculus. Parasite, 22: 13.
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