Mussels flexing their muscles: a new method for quantifying bivalve behaviour |
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Authors: | Anthony Robson Rory Wilson Carlos Garcia de Leaniz |
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Institution: | (1) Institute of Environmental Sustainability, School of the Environment and Society, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, Wales, SA2 8PP, UK |
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Abstract: | We employed a novel technique to quantify how blue mussels Mytilus edulis react to predation risk in their environment by quantifying mussel gape using a Hall sensor attached to one shell valve reacting
to a magnet attached to the other. Change in gape angle per second (CHIGA) versus gape angle plots resulted in a distribution
with a boundary, which defined the maximum CHIGA of a mussel at all gape angles. CHIGA boundary plots for all individual mussels
were similar in form. However, the CHIGA boundary increased in extent with mussel length (maximum CHIGA for mussel valve closures
for mussels 2.98 and 79.6 mm long were −1.5 and −11°s−1, respectively), showing that larger mussels opened and closed most rapidly. Mussel extract added to the seawater, a factor
believed to signal predation, caused mussels to close significantly faster than otherwise (P < 0.001). This approach for assessing how mussels react to their environment indicates that mussel response to predation
is graded and complex and may well indicate animal-based assessments of the trade-off between effective feeding and the likelihood
of predation. |
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Keywords: | |
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