The Utilization of Chemical Communication by Three Species Of
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2012 The utilization of chemical communication by three species of ghost shrimp, Callichirus islagrande, Callichirus major, and Lepidophthalmus louisianensis, and the transport of chemical cues within and between burrows Julie Emily Prerost Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Recommended Citation Prerost, Julie Emily, "The utilization of chemical communication by three species of ghost shrimp, Callichirus islagrande, Callichirus major, and Lepidophthalmus louisianensis, and the transport of chemical cues within and between burrows" (2012). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 871. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/871 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE UTILIZATION OF CHEMICAL COMMUNICATION BY THREE SPECIES OF GHOST SHRIMP, CALLICHIRUS ISLAGRANDE, CALLICHIRUS MAJOR, AND LEPIDOPHTHALMUS LOUISIANENSIS, AND THE TRANSPORT OF CHEMICAL CUES WITHIN AND BETWEEN BURROWS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Biological Sciences by Julie Emily Prerost B.S., Spring Hill College, 1996 M.S., University of South Alabama 2004 December 2012 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the current members of my committee, Dr. Christopher Finelli, Dr. John Fleeger, Dr. John Caprio, Dr. Jaye Cable, and Dr. Christopher Green, for their advice and comments. I appreciate your willingness to work with me long distance over the course of my research and writing. I would like to thank Dr. Finelli for allowing me to pursue the chemical communication avenue of research and funding my efforts through his NSF Career Grant Award OCE-0094169. I would like to thank my former committee members, Dr. Jim Belanger, Dr. Sam Bentley, and Dr. Megan LaPeyre, for their contributions during the early stages of my research and development. I would like to thank the cast characters at LUMCON that helped me continue my work once my lab had left. I offer my thanks to Dr. Jesse Kessler for allowing me to borrow members of the education staff for field work. Thanks to my shrimp suction and sediment collection crew, Dean Chauvin (my lovely assistant), Murt Conover, Nazan Atilla, and Nicole Cotton, for their work in the field. I would like to thank Dr. Nancy Rabalais for allowing me continued access to the facilities and equipment that I needed to complete my research. I would like to thank the boat guys and maintenance crew at LUMCON for all of the assistance that they offered in the lab and field. I would like to thank Russell Martin for helping fix and maintain the race track flume. I would like to thank the graduate department in Biological Sciences at LSU for their financial and bureaucratic support. I appreciate all of the assistance in navigating the paperwork and advice provided by Prissy Milligan and Dr. Madaline Robison. I would like to offer special thanks to Andrea Hamilton. Without Andrea’s help, I would not have completed the last of my flume experiments among other things. I would like to thank Dr. William Wischusen and John ii Quebedeaux, Jr. for using their powers of long distance technology at the last minute to allow me to broadcast my defense. Finally, I would like to extend my thanks to the crew in Mobile, AL. Thanks to Dr. Anne Boettcher and Dr. Ryan Moody for input on my final presentation and help with sigma plot. To all of those who wrangled Vivianne, so that I might work on my dissertations, I thank you. I would like to thank the science department at Mary G. Montgomery High School for their support and encouragement. I would like to thank my family for their continued encouragement and support during the whole process, including refraining from asking about my progress during my superstitious phase. I would like to thank Vivianne Prerost for being as understanding as a small child could whenever I had to spend long hours on the computer or away from home. I would like to thank awesome Dr. Sinéad M. Ní Chadhain, my partner. Without her assistance with Vivianne and magical touch with formatting word, I never would have finished. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. ii ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................1 1.1 Chemical communication ..................................................................................1 1.2 Environmental factors that affect chemical cue dispersal and reception ...........3 1.3 General considerations of thalassinidean shrimp ...............................................8 1.4 Investigation of chemical communication in thalassinidean shrimp and their hydrodynamic environment ...................................................................................9 1.5 Significance......................................................................................................15 CHAPTER 2. CHEMICAL COMMUNICATION BETWEEN CONSPECIFICS IN THREE SPECIES OF GHOST SHRIMP (THALASSINIDEA) FROM THE NORTHERN GULF OF MEXICO ............................................................................................................................16 2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................16 2.2 Methods............................................................................................................18 2.3 Results ..............................................................................................................22 2.4 Discussion ........................................................................................................42 2.5 Conclusions ......................................................................................................48 CHAPTER 3. ODOR PLUME DISPERSAL IN A MODEL BURROW AS A FUNCTION OF ODOR RELEASE RATE AND BURROW FLOW ..........................................................50 3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................50 3.2 Methods............................................................................................................52 3.3 Results ..............................................................................................................57 3.4 Discussion ........................................................................................................74 3.5 Conclusions ......................................................................................................80 CHAPTER 4. HOWDY NEIGHBOR! A FLUME STUDY OF POTENTIAL BURROW TO BURROW CHEMICAL COMMUNICATION IN THALASSINIDEAN SHRIMP. ......82 4.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................82 4.2 Methods............................................................................................................85 4.3 Results ..............................................................................................................93 4.4 Discussion ......................................................................................................110 4.5 Conclusions ....................................................................................................115 CHAPTER 5. SUMMARY .............................................................................................118 5.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................118 5.2 Investigation of chemical communication in thalassinidean shrimp and their hydrodynamic environment: the conclusions .............................................120 5.3 Future research recommendations .................................................................124 iv REFERENCES ................................................................................................................127 VITA ................................................................................................................................134 v ABSTRACT A multidisciplinary study of the factors affecting the potential use of chemical cues by three species of infaunal shrimp was performed in three parts. A set of modified y-maze choice experiments were performed to establish the ability of three species of ghost shrimp, Callichirus islangrande, Callichirus major, and Leptidophthalmus louisianensis, to detect conspecifics via chemical cue. The time budgets for the detection of conspecifics chemical cues differed significantly from controls (no cue) for both animal cues and odor only cues indicating that all three species were able to detect the difference in sex of conspecific chemical cues regardless of cue source. The differences between the trials in which the cue animal was present and odor cue alone was present