Download PDF

Bilateral Symmetry in Crayfish Behavioral Reactions

Acta Biologica Hungarica volume 59, pages163–172(2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The crayfish, Procambarus cubensis, placed in the central area of a plus-maze preferred to go forward in about 50% of trials; they chose the right or left arm in 20.7 and 18.9% of the trials, respectively. In a T-maze, the difference between right and left directions was also insignificant. When exploring a plusmaze, the crayfish turned to 180° at the end of the arms, then turned to 90° going to the next arm. The mean difference between the right and left U-turns, and the right and left turns was insignificant though some animals demonstrated a left or right preference. There was a strong correlation between the direction of U-turns and following turns ensuring the clockwise or anti-clockwise movements of the crayfish. Also we examined a possible preference of the right or left claw in the feeding behavior of the crayfish. The crayfish caught a small bloodworm given from above equally with the right or left claw. The crayfish conditioned to take a bloodworm with a claw did not demonstrate any stable preference of left or right claw in the course of the experiments. The question of bilateral asymmetries within the decapod crustaceans is discussed.

References

  1. 1.

    Baranyuk, G. V., Shishlov, S. B., Yakovlev, K. A. (1983) Study of visual and tactile sensory systems in various behaviors of the crayfish. In: Sologub, M. I. (ed.) The Mechanisms of Crustacean Motor Activity. LGPI im. Gertsena, Leningrad, pp. 11–21. (In Russian).

    Google Scholar 

  2. 2.

    Bisazza, A., Rogers, J., Vallortigara, G. (1998) The origins of cerebral asymmetry: A review of evidence of behavioural and brain lateralization in fishes, reptiles and amphibians. Neurosci. and Biobehav. Rev. 22, 411–426.

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. 3.

    Burmistrov, Yu. M., Shuranova, Zh. P. (1996) Individual features in invertebrate behavior: Crustacea. In: Abramson, C. I., Shuranova, Zh. P., Burmistrov, Yu. M. (eds) Russian Contributions to Invertebrate Behavior. Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, pp. 111–143.

    Google Scholar 

  4. 4.

    Burmistrov, Yu. M., Shuranova, Zh. P. (2003) Bilaterally symmetrical ventilatory activity in free moving crayfish. In: Elsner, N., Zimmermann, H. (eds) Proc. of the 29th Göttingen Neurobiology Conference and the 5th Meeting of the German Neurosci. Soc. Thieme, Stuttgart, p. 393.

    Google Scholar 

  5. 5.

    Crandall, K. A., Harris, D. J., Fetzner, J. W. (2000) The monophyletic origin of freshwater crayfish estimated from nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences. Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B267, 1679–1686.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. 6.

    Govind, C. K. (1992) Claw asymmetry in lobsters: Case study in developmental neuroethology. J. Neurobiol. 23, 1423–1445.

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  7. 7.

    Govind, C. K., Pearce, J. (1992) Mechanoreceptors and minimal reflex activity determining claw laterality in developing lobsters. J. exp. Biol. 171, 149–162.

    Google Scholar 

  8. 8.

    Ioffe, M. E., Pletneva, E. V., Stashkevich, I. S. (2004) Functional motor asymmetries in animals. In: Fokin, V. F. (ed.) Hemispheric Functional Asymmetry. Nauchni Mir, Moskva, pp. 124–141. (In Russian).

    Google Scholar 

  9. 9.

    Kelly, T. M., Chapple, W. D. (1990) Kinematic analysis of the defense response in crayfish. J. Neurophysiol. 64, 64–76.

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  10. 10.

    Lnenicka, G. A., Atwood, H. L., Marin, L. (1986) Morphological transformation of synaptic terminals of a phasic motoneuron by long-term tonic stimulation. J. Neurosci. 6, 2252–2258.

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  11. 11.

    Mariappan, P., Balansudaram, Ch., Schmitz, B. (2000) Decapod crustacean chelipeds: an overview. J. Biosci. 25, 301–313.

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  12. 12.

    Mearow, K. M., Govind, C. K. (1989) Stimulation-induced changes at crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) neuromuscular terminals. Cell Tissue Res. 256, 119–123.

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  13. 13.

    Palmer, A. R. (1996) From symmetry to asymmetry. Phylogenetic patterns of asymmetry variation in animals and their evolutionary significance. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 93, 14279–14286.

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  14. 14.

    Rode, A. L., Babcock, L. E. (2003) Phylogeny of fossil and extant freshwater crayfish and some closely related nephropid lobsters. J. Crust. Biol. 23, 418–435.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. 15.

    Rosenberg, M. S. (2002) Fiddler crab claw shape variation: a geometric morphometric analysis across the genus Uca (Crustacea: Brachyura: Ocypodidae). Biol. J. Linnean Soc. 75, 147–162.

    Google Scholar 

  16. 16.

    Schram, F. R., Dixon, Ch. J. (2004) Decapod phylogeny: addition of fossil evidence to a robust morphological cladistic data set. Bull. Mizunami Fossil Museum no. 31, 1–19.

    Google Scholar 

  17. 17.

    Schwarting, K. W., Borta A. (2005) Analysis of behavioral asymmetries in the elevated plus-maze and in the T-maze. J. Neurosci. Methods 141, 251–260.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. 18.

    Shuranova, Zh. P., Burmistrov, Yu. M. (1988) The Neurophysiology of the Crayfish. Nauka, Moskva. (In Russian).

    Google Scholar 

  19. 19.

    Shuranova, Zh., Burmistrov, Yu. (2006) Beatings of maxilliped flagellar exopodites in the crayfish as an overt expression of its excitation. In: Volkov, E. M., Gainutdinov, Kh. L. (eds) Simpler Nervous Systems. FizTechPress, Kazan, p. 78.

    Google Scholar 

  20. 20.

    Shuranova, Zh., Burmistrov, Yu., Abramson, Ch. I. (2005) Habituation to a novel environment in the crayfish Procambarus cubensis. J. Crust. Biol. 25, 488–494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. 21.

    Udalova, G. P., Karas’, A. Ya. (2004) Asymmetry in direction of the movements in invertebrates. In: Fokin, V. F. (ed.) Hemispheric Functional Asymmetry. Nauchni Mir, Moskva, pp. 163–178. (In Russian).

    Google Scholar 

  22. 22.

    Uziel, D., Lopes-Conceiçăo, M. C., Simpson, D., Lent, R. (1998) Ontogenesis of lateralized rotational behavior in hamsters: a time series study. Behav. Brain Res. 92, 47–53.

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  23. 23.

    Várkonyi, P. L., Meszéna, G., Domokos, G. (2006) Emergence of asymmetry in evolution. Theoretical Population Biology 70, 63–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. 24.

    Yerkes, R. M., Huggins, G. E. (1903) Habit formation in the crawfish Cambarus affinis. Harvard Psychol. Studies 1, 565–577.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow and Yu. Burmistrov Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    Zhanna Shuranova

Authors
  1. Zhanna Shuranova
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhanna Shuranova.

Rights and permissions

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Shuranova, Z. Bilateral Symmetry in Crayfish Behavioral Reactions. BIOLOGIA FUTURA 59, 163–172 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1556/ABiol.59.2008.Suppl.25

Download citation

Keywords

  • Crayfish
  • plus-maze
  • T-maze
  • directional preference
  • claw preference