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Morphometric correlations between dietary and reproductive traits of two brachyuran crabs, Hemigrapsus sanguineus and Aratus pisonii

Many animals have flexible morphological traits that allow them to succeed in differing circumstances with differing diets available to them. For brachyuran crabs, claw height and gut size are diet-specific and largely reflect foraging strategies, while abdomen width reflects relative levels of fecu...

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Autores principales: Potter, Ben, Cannizzo, Zachary J., Griffen, Blaine D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9352013/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35925929
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267369
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author Potter, Ben
Cannizzo, Zachary J.
Griffen, Blaine D.
author_facet Potter, Ben
Cannizzo, Zachary J.
Griffen, Blaine D.
author_sort Potter, Ben
collection PubMed
description Many animals have flexible morphological traits that allow them to succeed in differing circumstances with differing diets available to them. For brachyuran crabs, claw height and gut size are diet-specific and largely reflect foraging strategies, while abdomen width reflects relative levels of fecundity. However, the link between claw size and diet has largely been documented only for primarily carnivorous crabs, while the link between diet and fecundity is strong in herbivorous crabs. We sought to determine the nature of the intraspecific relationship between claw size, dietary habits, and fecundity for two primarily herbivorous crab species, Hemigrapsus sanguineus and Aratus pisonii. Specifically, we examined whether claw size and/or abdomen width can be used as reliable measures of individual diet strategy. To test these hypotheses, we collected crabs and measured the dimensions of their claws, abdomens, and guts. By comparing these dimensions for each individual, we found that strongly predictive relationships do not exist between these traits for the primarily herbivorous species in our study. Thus, identifying external morphological features that can be used to assess diets of primarily herbivorous crabs remains elusive.
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spelling pubmed-93520132022-08-05 Morphometric correlations between dietary and reproductive traits of two brachyuran crabs, Hemigrapsus sanguineus and Aratus pisonii Potter, Ben Cannizzo, Zachary J. Griffen, Blaine D. PLoS One Research Article Many animals have flexible morphological traits that allow them to succeed in differing circumstances with differing diets available to them. For brachyuran crabs, claw height and gut size are diet-specific and largely reflect foraging strategies, while abdomen width reflects relative levels of fecundity. However, the link between claw size and diet has largely been documented only for primarily carnivorous crabs, while the link between diet and fecundity is strong in herbivorous crabs. We sought to determine the nature of the intraspecific relationship between claw size, dietary habits, and fecundity for two primarily herbivorous crab species, Hemigrapsus sanguineus and Aratus pisonii. Specifically, we examined whether claw size and/or abdomen width can be used as reliable measures of individual diet strategy. To test these hypotheses, we collected crabs and measured the dimensions of their claws, abdomens, and guts. By comparing these dimensions for each individual, we found that strongly predictive relationships do not exist between these traits for the primarily herbivorous species in our study. Thus, identifying external morphological features that can be used to assess diets of primarily herbivorous crabs remains elusive. Public Library of Science 2022-08-04 /pmc/articles/PMC9352013/ /pubmed/35925929 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267369 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication.
spellingShingle Research Article
Potter, Ben
Cannizzo, Zachary J.
Griffen, Blaine D.
Morphometric correlations between dietary and reproductive traits of two brachyuran crabs, Hemigrapsus sanguineus and Aratus pisonii
title Morphometric correlations between dietary and reproductive traits of two brachyuran crabs, Hemigrapsus sanguineus and Aratus pisonii
title_full Morphometric correlations between dietary and reproductive traits of two brachyuran crabs, Hemigrapsus sanguineus and Aratus pisonii
title_fullStr Morphometric correlations between dietary and reproductive traits of two brachyuran crabs, Hemigrapsus sanguineus and Aratus pisonii
title_full_unstemmed Morphometric correlations between dietary and reproductive traits of two brachyuran crabs, Hemigrapsus sanguineus and Aratus pisonii
title_short Morphometric correlations between dietary and reproductive traits of two brachyuran crabs, Hemigrapsus sanguineus and Aratus pisonii
title_sort morphometric correlations between dietary and reproductive traits of two brachyuran crabs, hemigrapsus sanguineus and aratus pisonii
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9352013/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35925929
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267369
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