Skip to main content

Cave-dwelling shrimp (Hemimysis margalefi) use chemical smells of water to navigate home

Cave-dwelling shrimp (Hemimysis margalefi) use chemical smells of water to navigate home

NEWS - Cave-dwelling shrimp (Hemimysis margalefi) find their way home in the vast ocean using the special scent of their cave. Tiny mysid shrimps use scent to track their way home thanks to local differences in the ‘chemical seascape’

Animals have the ability to navigate to their home locations, breeding grounds and feeding areas. Salmon, pigeons, bees, frogs, mice, sea turtles rely on landmarks such as the Earth’s magnetic field, patterns of polarised light in the sky and so on to find their way back.

Cave-dwelling mysid shrimps, also known as possum shrimps because the females have a pouch to carry their larvae, also use chemical cues to navigate underwater caves in the same way that coral larvae and reef-dwelling fish distinguish between healthy and disturbed coral reefs.

“For the first time we show that mysids can distinguish between waterborne scents that characterize their caves, in addition to the scents of nearby caves. This distinctive seascape helps them find their caves again when they return from their nightly migrations,” says Thierry Pérez of Aix Marseille Université.

H. margalefi lives in sea caves in the northwestern Mediterranean forming dense swarms with millions of individuals per cave. At dusk, they move hundreds of meters into open water to feed on algae, detritus and other zooplankton. At dawn, they return to the same caves to seek shelter from predators.

The researchers took seawater samples from three caves in the Calanques National Park off the coast of southern France. The caves are between 11 and 24 meters underwater and are between 8 and 20 kilometers apart. They also collected individuals of another mysid species that does not live in caves but lives in shallow water.

The shrimp were placed in a Y-shaped channel. Each arm was connected to a 10-liter tank filled with seawater from one of the caves. This water flows out of the tank into the channel at a rate of 50 milliliters per minute carrying away all water-soluble metabolites.

The researchers tested 286 individuals of which 230 were H. margalefi and 56 were Leptomysis. Experiments were conducted in the morning and afternoon to test the effect of time on shrimp preferences, but there was no effect.

Individuals from Jarre cave spent 16 times longer in the group with Jarre water than in the group with 3PP water, while individuals from Fauconnière cave spent three times longer in the group with Fauconnière cave water than in the group with 3PP water.

Individuals from Jarre cave did not prefer Fauconnière water to 3PP water, while individuals from Fauconnière cave did not prefer Jarre water to 3PP water. Similarly, non-cave Leptomysis never preferred one type of water to the other.

The seascape was composed mainly of natural peptides, fatty acids, steroids, alkaloids and anthropogenic pollutants. The chemical signature of Jarre water was very different from that of Fauconnière water, while the chemical signature of 3PP water was intermediate between the two. Sessile organisms such as sponges that are abundant in caves and produce many specialized metabolites are major contributors to the local seascape.

“We know that food availability in marine cave ecosystems is highly dependent on the daily migration of zooplankton such as mycids. We show that any change in water quality or sessile fauna in the cave can change its chemistry with possible negative impacts on the functioning of the entire ecosystem,” Pérez said.

“It is worrying that mass mortality of sponges and corals is becoming more frequent due to climate change. We are following up by testing the biodiversity of sessile organisms living in them, focusing on the role of metabolites from sponges and corals,” Pérez said.

Original research

Derrien Marie, Santonja Mathieu, Greff Stéphane, Figueres Soizic, Simmler Charlotte, Chevaldonné Pierre, Pérez Thierry (2024). Circadian migrations of cave-dwelling crustaceans guided by their home chemical seascape. Frontiers in Marine Science, Volume 11, DOI:10.3389/fmars.2024.1448616

Dlium theDlium
Labels:

Popular Posts

Redflower ragleaf (Crassocephalum crepidioides)

Sintrong or ebolo or thickhead or redflower ragleaf ( Crassocephalum crepidioides ) are plant species in Asteraceae, terma height 25-100 cm, white fibrous roots, generally grow wild on the roadside, yard gardens or abandoned lands at altitude 200- 2500 m. C. crepidioides has erect or horizontal stems along the soil surface, vascular, soft, non-woody, shallow grooves, green, rough surface and short white hair, aromatic fragrance when squeezed. Petiole is spread on stems, tubular and eared. Single leaf, spread out, green, 8-20 cm long, 3-6 cm wide, longitudinal or round inverted eggshell with a narrow base along the stalk. Pointed tip, flat-edged or curved to pinnate, jagged rough and pointed. The top leaves are smaller and often sit. Compound flowers grow throughout the year in humps that are arranged in terminal flat panicles and androgynous. Green cuffs with orange-brown to brick-red tips, cylindrical for 13-16 mm long and 5-6 mm wide. The crown is yellow with a brownish red...
Read more

Purwaceng (Pimpinella pruatjan)

Purwaceng or purwoceng or antanan gunung or Viagra of Java ( Pimpinella pruatjan or Pimpinella priatjan ) are small termas growing horizontally in Apiaceae, growing in villages on Dieng Plateau, Central Java Province, Indonesia, at 1,500 to 2,000 meters above sea level, the roots have medicinal properties for aphrodisiacs and are usually processed in powder form for a mixture of coffee or milk. P. pruatjan grows flat on the ground but does not propagate, small leaves are reddish green for 1-3 cm in diameter. This plant is only found in Java and grows in high mountain areas. A low population where industrial demand is very high results in increasingly scarce. Another place that is likely to become a purwaceng habitat is the Iyang Mountains and the Tengger Mountains in East Java Province. Efforts to multiply and cultivate have a big problem where these plants have difficulty producing seeds. In vitro propagation research through tissue cultivation has been carried out to overcome ...
Read more

Bitter vine (Mikania micrantha)

Sembung rambat or bitter vine ( Mikania micrantha ) is a plant species in Asteraceae, crawling or wrapped around trees, perennial that grows up to 27 mm per day in tropical climates, branched stems where heart-shaped or triangular leaves are arranged in pairs and a plant can cover more than 25 square meters in a few months. M. micrantha has square-shaped stems or longitudinal bones, light green, many branches and has fine hairs. The stems have segments for lengths of 75-215 mm, each segment has a pair of leaves, new shoots and flowers. New roots grow when the segments come in contact with the soil. The leaves are in pairs and facing each other. Strands do not have hair, heart-shaped or triangular with jagged edges, length 30-125 mm, width 15-60 mm. Petiole is 1-6 cm long and has fine hairs. The flower panicle grows from the armpit of the leaf and the tip of the stem, having 3-15 mm long stems. Each flower head has 4 minor flowers. The crown is greenish-white, tubular and measures ...
Read more