Chi X et al. (2021), Foraging behavior of the sea urchin Mesocentrot...

ECB-ART-49050

Sci Rep 2021 Aug 02;111:15654. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-94969-w.

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Foraging behavior of the sea urchin Mesocentrotus nudus exposed to conspecific alarm cues in various conditions.

Chi X , Yang M , Hu F , Huang X , Yu Y , Chang Y , Wang Q , Zhao C .

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Conspecific alarm cues crushed from Mesocentrotus nudus prevent sea urchins from foraging the kelp, but do not repel them far away from the kelp. However, it remains largely unknown of whether this phenomenon was affected by conspecific alarm cues or by the attraction of the kelp. The present study found no significant difference in the duration in the danger area with or without the kelp around conspecific alarm cues. This suggests that the phenomenon is the strategy of sea urchins but not by the attraction of kelp. We found that conspecific alarm cues appearing between the kelp and sea urchins significantly affected foraging behavior of sea urchins fasted for 21 days. This indicates that conspecific alarm cues can effectively prevent fasted sea urchins from foraging the kelp. Further, there was no correlation between foraging velocity and the duration in the danger area. Pearson correlation analysis revealed no significant correlation between foraging velocity and the duration in the safety area close to different amounts of conspecific alarm cues, suggesting that conspecific alarm cues prevent sea urchins with strong foraging ability to forage. Collectively, the present results indicate that conspecific alarm cues as highly available biological barriers are cost-effective approaches to preventing overgrazing of sea urchins in the protection of kelp beds ecosystems. Notably, the present study is a short-term laboratory investigation that does not consider the complexity of natural conditions. Future studies are essential to test the present findings in the field.

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	Figure 1. Experiment 1: duration in the danger area (A) and in the escape area (B) in the experimental and control groups.
	Figure 2. Experiment 2: duration in the danger area (A) and in the escape area (B) in Mesocentrotus nudus (fasted for 7, 14 and 21 days) exposed to conspecific alarm cues.
	Figure 3. Experiment 3: correlation between foraging velocity and the duration in the danger area (g area) in Mesocentrotus nudus when they encountered conspecific alarm cues on the way to forage (A), correlation between foraging velocity and the duration in the h area (B), correlation between foraging velocity and the duration in the i area (C) when the kelp was around 5 mL and 0.5 mL conspecific alarm cues.
	Figure 4. Foraging devices for the experiments with Mesocentrotus nudus. Experiment 1: the kelp was attracted by sea urchins (A,B); the positions of a, c and f refer to the escape areas, while positions of b, d and e refer to the danger areas. Experiment 2: five mL of conspecific alarm cues were put in the middle of the device (C). Experiment 3 (D–F): foraging behavior of M. nudus at 70 cm in the first trial (D); five mL of conspecific alarm cues were put in the middle of the device in the second trial (E); the position of g refers to the danger area; different amounts of conspecific alarm cues (5 mL and 0.5 mL) were put in the left and right of the devices in the third trial (F); the positions of h and i refer to the safety areas close to the areas with more and less conspecific alarm cues, respectively. This figure was created using the Adobe Photoshop (version CS5) software.

References [+] :

Harris, Personality predicts foraging site fidelity and trip repeatability in a marine predator. 2020, Pubmed