The Effect of Anthropogenic Noise on Caribbean Hermit Crab's (Coenobita clypeatus) Behaviors
Discipline: Neuroscience
Subcategory: Pollution/Toxic Substances/Waste
Session: 1
Room: Gallery Place
Angelis Mary Morales Rivera - University of Puerto Rico at Cayey
Co-Author(s): Yeritmary Rodríguez Delgado, University of Puerto Rico at Cayey, Puerto Rico; Saadia P. Jiménez Ñeco, University of Puerto Rico at Cayey, Puerto Rico
Anthropogenic noise pollution affects the health and well-being of living organisms. Noise exposure may influence animals’ attention and behavior in contaminated ecosystems. Previous studies showed aversive noise effects on the behaviors of terrestrial and marine organisms. Our project studied the effect of anthropogenic noise on thigmotaxis behavior and decision-making skills using the Caribbean Hermit Crab (Coenobita clypeatus). We hypothesized that acute and chronic anthropogenic noise exposure impairs exploratory behaviors and decision-making skills in the shell selection test and open-field test, respectively. Experimentally naive animals were habituated to laboratory conditions and divided into three groups: the control group (animals not exposed to anthropogenic noise), the acute group (animals exposed to noise during the test), and the chronic group (animals exposed to noise for 14 hours prior the test). We used the Ethovision tracking system to analyze different behavioral categories during the paradigms. Preliminary results suggest changes in animal’s behavior during the open field test. Animals exposed to noise explored the center of the arena less than control animals. In addition, in the shell selection test animals displayed a tendency to explore the suboptimal, optimal, and supra-optimal shell distinctly depending upon the experimental group. Initially, suboptimal shells were explored more by naked animals exposed acutely to noise than by control and chronic groups’ animals. Chronic group animals also chose more suboptimal shells in comparison to control and chronic group animals. However, no differences were observed between the groups for the final shell selected. Potential detrimental effects of noise on exploration and shell selection may reduce animal attitudes to survive in noise-polluted ecosystems. Further analyses must be performed to elucidate the noise-aversive effect for the species.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): Puerto Rico Center for Environmental Neuroscience (PRCEN) CREST-Grant-1736019
Faculty Advisor: María De Jesús Burgos, maria.dejesus2@upr.edu
Role: Within this research, I contributed to the care of organisms and the process of habituation of these. In addition. I helped in the realization of the videos that were then evaluated with the Ethovision software. I did the above in both groups of individuals for both the study of shell selection and for center phobia. In addition, at the end of the video shooting, help in the analysis of these and in the discussion of the results obtained. Also, I participated in the collection of possible explanations for the behaviors and results observed from this research.