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Chelsea Crosby - Graduate Exit Seminar

Apr 5, 2018 (All day)
Location: 
352 W. Dodridge St., Columbus, OH 43202
Attachments: 

Please plan to attend Chelsea Crosby's Graduate Exit Seminar on Thursday, April 5th, 2018 at 2:00 p.m. in the ORWRP Classroom (Wetlands, 352 W. Dodridge St.)

Chelsea will be presenting, "The Role of Individual Learning and Dietary Preference in the Consumption of the Invasive Green Porcelain Crab, Petrolisthes armatus, by Native Crab Predators"

The invasive Green Porcelain Crab (Petrolisthes armatus) is an abundant potential prey resource for native predators within oyster reef communities along the southeastern coast of the U.S. However, native predators may not readily consume a novel prey. Here, we evaluated how exposure time and previously learned handling skills in naïve and experienced Atlantic Mud Crabs (Panopeus herbstii) and Blue Crabs (Callinectes sapidus) affected predators’ foraging behavior and consumption of P. armatus. We found evidence of individual learning in both predator species. However, naïve P. herbstii did not forage on P. armatus as efficiently as experienced individuals, which suggests that learning occurs over a longer time scale in this species. In contrast, there were few population-level differences in foraging behavior in C. sapidus, which suggests that C. sapidus will readily consume a novel prey species.

Although both species exhibited the ability to learn via repeated exposure to P. armatus, their consumption of P. armatus in the wild could be influenced by the presence of alternative native prey species. In order to test this hypothesis, we quantified the consumption of P. armatus by C. sapidus that had a choice of three alternative native prey species. We found that C. sapidus rarely incorporated P. armatus into its diet in this setting. Previous research has shown that P. herbstii exhibit a similar preference for native prey species. These findings suggest that both native predators exert limited predation pressure on P. armatus, which likely contributes to its continued invasion success.