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Effect of different predators on the escape response of Placopecten magellanicus

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Abstract

To assess whether giant scallops, Placopecten magellanicus use distinct escape strategies to respond to their seastar and crustacean predators, escape responses to two major seastar predators, Asterias vulgaris and Leptasterias polaris, two seastars with little predatory impact, Crossaster papposus and Solaster endeca, and two crustacean predators, Cancer irroratus and Hyas araneus were compared. A glass rod served as a mechanical control. The responses of juvenile [2+ year (y), ~36-mm shell height (SH)] and adult (6+ y, ~100-mm SH) scallops from the Magdalen Islands, Québec, Canada, were assessed in early summer 2005. The predatory seastars evoked the strongest response, in terms of both response latency and minimum interval between phasic contractions and numbers of phasic contractions, particularly early in the escape response. Both the minor seastar predators and crabs stimulated stronger responses than the mechanical control. Juvenile scallops were livelier than adult scallops. As P. magellanicus consistently responded to predators with an initial flurry of phasic contractions that tapered off to spaced phasic contractions separated by increasingly long tonic contractions, only the intensity of the escape response seems to have been modified by selection.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to HG and JHH as well as funding from Ressources Aquatiques du Québec to HG. The authors would like to acknowledge Mélanie Bourgeois and the staff at CultiMer as well as Merinov for their considerable assistance during our work at the Magdalen Islands.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Département de Biologie, Université Laval, Pavillon Alexandre-Vachon, 1045 Avenue de la Médecine, Québec, QC, G1V 0A6, Canada

    Helga E. Guderley, John H. Himmelman, Hernan Pérez Cortes, Isabelle Tremblay & Xavier Janssoone

  2. Merinov, 107-125, chemin du Parc, Cap-aux-Meules, QC, Canada

    Madeleine Nadeau

  3. Facultad de Ciencias del Mar, Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Zonas Áridas (CEAZA), Universidad Católica del Norte, Coquimbo, Chile

    Hernan Pérez Cortes

Authors
  1. Helga E. Guderley
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  2. John H. Himmelman
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  3. Madeleine Nadeau
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  4. Hernan Pérez Cortes
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  5. Isabelle Tremblay
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  6. Xavier Janssoone
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Helga E. Guderley.

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Communicated by J. Grassle.

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Guderley, H.E., Himmelman, J.H., Nadeau, M. et al. Effect of different predators on the escape response of Placopecten magellanicus . Mar Biol 162, 1407–1415 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-015-2677-x

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