Abstract
Marine animals invading the intertidal zone face a number of potentially stressful or lethal physical factors (e.g. extreme temperatures, desiccation). As physiological ecologists, we have set out to investigate the various sorts of mechanisms by which animals cope with intertidal and supratidal existence, and our research has a larger physiological emphasis than most other programs represented in this symposium. However, many of the adaptations for coping with the challenges of the physical environment are behavioral, instead of (or in addition to) physiological. In this paper we discuss how the concept of physical “limiting factors” has been used to elucidate the coping mechanisms of a series of intertidal and terrestrial crabs. Two types of behavioral adaptation are included in the discussion: 1) behaviors which contribute to homeostasis during stress and might be considered part of physiological mechanisms (e.g., behaviors for taking up water); and 2) behaviors which remove the animal from stressful microenvironments (e.g., selection of specific microhabitats, locomotion, behavioral range limitation).
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Wolcott, T.G., Wolcott, D.L. (1988). When Limiting Factors aren’t: Lessons from Land Crabs. In: Chelazzi, G., Vannini, M. (eds) Behavioral Adaptation to Intertidal Life. NATO ASI Series, vol 151. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3737-7_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3737-7_11
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