The hermit crabs must defend the soft remains in the shells. In this role, they began utilizing plastics and another anthropogenic materials, as described in discipline of the full Environment by scientists from the University of Warsaw and the University of Nature in Poznań.
The most common anthropogenic waste in seawater is plastics, commonly referred to as plastic. They have a very harmful effect on wildlife and the environment. It besides turns out that they can importantly alter the natural behaviour of animals.
January 6 in the diary “Science of the full EnvironmentThe article of 3 Polish scientists – Prof. Marta Szulkin and Dr. Zuzanna Jagiełło from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Warsaw and Dr. Łukasz Dylewski from the University of Nature in Poznań was published. Researchers describe how utilizing innovative investigation methods related to iEcology (an online ecology that identifies the usage of different online data sources as a tool in ecological research), the emergence of fresh behaviour in hermit crabs has been demonstrated. These creatures began to usage lying on beaches and in water plastic alternatively of shells.
The Key to Survival
– The hermit crabs gotta defend the soft excrement. They do it by hiding in shells left by dead crustaceans. However, specified a mobile hideout on the back is not adequate for a lifetime: crabs grow and gotta replace them, and the optimal shell is simply a uncommon resource in the environment," the authors say.
Scientists analyzed photos of hermit crabs in the household published on social media and another online platforms Coenobitidae.
– In the photographs we discovered a full of 386 individuals utilizing "artificial shells" – mainly plastic nuts. Crabs besides utilized broken necks of glass bottles or metallic bulbs. According to our calculations, 10 of the 16 land species of hermit crabs worldwide usage this kind of refuge. This different behaviour is observed in all tropical areas of the Earth – scientists explain.
In the article, scientists present possible directions for the evolution of individual species of hermit crabs into anthropocene. Among the factors influencing the choice of ‘artificial shells’ by these animals are: sexual selection, weight of plastics, odour stimuli and the anticipation of camouflage in a polluted environment.
In the course of further research, scientists want to find the causes of this behaviour and its impact on the evolution of hermit crabs.
– These analyses will deepen our cognition about the consequences of contamination of marine ecosystems with plastic, as well as about the evolution of species in the context of fresh evolutionary pressures associated with anthropocene – researchers add.
