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Body Size Of The Endosymbiotic Pea Crab Tumidotheres Maculatus: Larger Hosts Hold Larger Crabs, Karen Kane, Gregory S. Farley
Body Size Of The Endosymbiotic Pea Crab Tumidotheres Maculatus: Larger Hosts Hold Larger Crabs, Karen Kane, Gregory S. Farley
Gulf and Caribbean Research
The endosymbiotic pea crab, Tumidotheres maculatus, uses a broad range of host taxa, including several bivalve species, in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Because shelter size affects the size of other, free-living crab species, we hypothesized that pea crabs living in larger bivalve hosts should attain larger sizes. Crabs and hosts collected from 3 field sites in northern Florida show this trend. We examined crabs living in a large host, the pen shell Atrina rigida, and found them to be larger than pea crabs living in a small host, the bay scallop Argopecten irradians. Moreover, this trend …