Skip Navigation

American Zoologist 2001 41(5):1108-1122; doi:10.1093/icb/41.5.1108
© 2001 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Request Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Forward, R. B.
Right arrow Articles by Rittschof, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Cues for Metamorphosis of Brachyuran Crabs: An Overview1

Richard B. Forward, Jr.,2,1, Richard A. Tankersley2 and Dan Rittschof1
1 135 Duke Marine Lab Road, Beaufort, North Carolina 28516
2 Florida Institute of Technology, Department of Biological Sciences, 150 West University Blvd., Melbourne, Florida 32901

The early life cycle of brachyuran crabs has a planktonic dispersal stage consisting of a variable number of zoeal larvae followed by the molt to the megalopa stage. Megalopae undergo horizontal transport to the settlement site where they settle out of the water column and metamorphose to the first crab (juvenile) stage. This review provides an overview of recent laboratory studies of cues that shorten or lengthen the time to metamorphosis (TTM) of the megalopa stage. Megalopae cannot delay metamorphosis indefinitely and have a temporal threshold beyond which metamorphosis occurs without habitat cues. The TTM can be shortened about 15–25% upon exposure to acceleration cues, which include chemical cues and odors from adult substrate, aquatic vegetation, biofilms, conspecifics, estuarine water, humic acids, related crab species, and potential prey. Cues shown to delay metamorphosis include ammonium, hypoxia, predator odor and extreme temperature and salinity conditions. There is no evidence that structural mimics of natural substrate affect TTM.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.