New approaches to the behavioural ecology of decapod crustaceansusing telemetry and electronic tags

• Main Authors: Freire Botana, Juan Manuel, González Gurriarán, Eduardo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kluwer Academic Publishers 1998
• Subjects: Behavioural ecology; Crustaceans; Decapods; Electronic tags; Migrations; Telemetry

Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica (DGICYT), Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, España Decapod crustaceans have complex life histories and behaviour in aspects such as foraging, mating and reproduction,moulting and growth, habitat selection and migration. New technologies have enabled us to use an individual,field-based approach to analyze these problems, although they have been less developed in decapods than in marinevertebrates. These new possibilities are discussed here mainly from a biological point of view. There is a briefreview of previous applications of telemetry to analyze habitat selection, foraging behaviour, energetics, moultingsite selection and migrations in decapods, and two case studies are discussed in more detail. The first one refers tothe study of differences in habitat use and movement patterns in juveniles and adults of coastal species that showontogenetic habitat shifts, related to differences in selective pressures affecting both life history stages (predationrisk, and growth and reproduction optimization). The second case study is dedicated to the migratory patterns inspider crabs combining telemetry and electronic tags. Operational limitations in tracking make it impossible toget detailed information on movement patterns during migration, which in turn involve an important bathymetricgradient and a change in the oceanographic environment (mainly temperature).Monitoring depth and temperaturein the immediate habitat of the animals, using electronic data storage tags recovered by the fishery, allow formovement patterns to be modeled using supplementary information on the topography and hydrography of thestudy area. This approach is being tested using both telemetry and electronic tags simultaneously Consellería de Pesca, Marisqueo e Acuicultura, Xunta de Galicia