Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 29 April 1994:
Vol. 264. no. 5159, pp. 710 - 712
DOI: 10.1126/science.264.5159.710
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Effects of Manipulated Diet on Size and Performance of Brachyuran Crab Claws

L. David Smith 1 and A. Richard Palmer 1

1 Department of Zoology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E9, and Bamfield Marine Station, Bamfield, British Columbia VOR 1BO, Canada

Crabs grown experimentally on fully shelled prey developed larger and stronger claws than those raised on nutritionally equivalent unshelled prey. When one claw was immobilized, claws also became asymmetrical. These use-induced changes differ from skeletal remodelling in vertebrates and many invertebrates because changes in the rigid exoskeleton can occur only after molting, and claw muscle mass must be reduced substantially before the molt. Such short-term adaptive responses to environmental stimuli, if heritable, could yield long-term evolutionary changes in claw size and, if combined with behavioral biases toward one side (handedness), could also promote the evolution of claw dimorphism.

Submitted on October 4, 1993
Accepted on February 14, 1994


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Sexual selection in a moth: effect of symmetry on male mating success in the wild.
C. Koshio, M. Muraji, H. Tatsuta, and S.-i. Kudo (2007)
Behav. Ecol. 18, 571-578
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Symmetry Breaking and the Evolution of Development.
A. R. Palmer (2004)
Science 306, 828-833
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Characters in context: molluscan shells and the forces that mold them.
(2002)
Paleobiology 28, 41-54
Phenotypic Plasticity in the Interactions and Evolution of Species.
A. A. Agrawal (2001)
Science 294, 321-326
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Induced defenses in response to an invading crab predator: An explanation of historical and geographic phenotypic change.
G. C. Trussell and L. D. Smith (2000)
PNAS 97, 2123-2127
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)