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Predatory blue crabs induce stronger nonconsumptive effects in eastern oysters Crassostrea virginica than scavenging blue crabs

By influencing critical prey traits such as foraging or habitat selection, predators can affect entire ecosystems, but the nature of cues that trigger prey reactions to predators are not well understood. Predators may scavenge to supplement their energetic needs and scavenging frequency may vary amo...

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Autores principales: Scherer, Avery E., Garcia, Miranda M., Smee, Delbert L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5333538/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28265512
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3042
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author Scherer, Avery E.
Garcia, Miranda M.
Smee, Delbert L.
author_facet Scherer, Avery E.
Garcia, Miranda M.
Smee, Delbert L.
author_sort Scherer, Avery E.
collection PubMed
description By influencing critical prey traits such as foraging or habitat selection, predators can affect entire ecosystems, but the nature of cues that trigger prey reactions to predators are not well understood. Predators may scavenge to supplement their energetic needs and scavenging frequency may vary among individuals within a species due to preferences and prey availability. Yet prey reactions to consumers that are primarily scavengers versus those that are active foragers have not been investigated, even though variation in prey reactions to scavengers or predators might influence cascading nonconsumptive effects in food webs. Oysters Crassostrea virginica react to crab predators by growing stronger shells. We exposed oysters to exudates from crabs fed live oysters or fed aged oyster tissue to simulate scavenging, and to controls without crab cues. Oysters grew stronger shells when exposed to either crab exudate, but their shells were significantly stronger when crabs were fed live oysters. The stronger response to predators than scavengers could be due to inherent differences in diet cues representative of reduced risk in the presence of scavengers or to degradation of conspecific alarm cues in aged treatments, which may mask risk from potential predators subsisting by scavenging.
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spelling pubmed-53335382017-03-06 Predatory blue crabs induce stronger nonconsumptive effects in eastern oysters Crassostrea virginica than scavenging blue crabs Scherer, Avery E. Garcia, Miranda M. Smee, Delbert L. PeerJ Ecology By influencing critical prey traits such as foraging or habitat selection, predators can affect entire ecosystems, but the nature of cues that trigger prey reactions to predators are not well understood. Predators may scavenge to supplement their energetic needs and scavenging frequency may vary among individuals within a species due to preferences and prey availability. Yet prey reactions to consumers that are primarily scavengers versus those that are active foragers have not been investigated, even though variation in prey reactions to scavengers or predators might influence cascading nonconsumptive effects in food webs. Oysters Crassostrea virginica react to crab predators by growing stronger shells. We exposed oysters to exudates from crabs fed live oysters or fed aged oyster tissue to simulate scavenging, and to controls without crab cues. Oysters grew stronger shells when exposed to either crab exudate, but their shells were significantly stronger when crabs were fed live oysters. The stronger response to predators than scavengers could be due to inherent differences in diet cues representative of reduced risk in the presence of scavengers or to degradation of conspecific alarm cues in aged treatments, which may mask risk from potential predators subsisting by scavenging. PeerJ Inc. 2017-02-28 /pmc/articles/PMC5333538/ /pubmed/28265512 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3042 Text en © 2017 Scherer et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Scherer, Avery E.
Garcia, Miranda M.
Smee, Delbert L.
Predatory blue crabs induce stronger nonconsumptive effects in eastern oysters Crassostrea virginica than scavenging blue crabs
title Predatory blue crabs induce stronger nonconsumptive effects in eastern oysters Crassostrea virginica than scavenging blue crabs
title_full Predatory blue crabs induce stronger nonconsumptive effects in eastern oysters Crassostrea virginica than scavenging blue crabs
title_fullStr Predatory blue crabs induce stronger nonconsumptive effects in eastern oysters Crassostrea virginica than scavenging blue crabs
title_full_unstemmed Predatory blue crabs induce stronger nonconsumptive effects in eastern oysters Crassostrea virginica than scavenging blue crabs
title_short Predatory blue crabs induce stronger nonconsumptive effects in eastern oysters Crassostrea virginica than scavenging blue crabs
title_sort predatory blue crabs induce stronger nonconsumptive effects in eastern oysters crassostrea virginica than scavenging blue crabs
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5333538/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28265512
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3042
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