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Endogenous swimming rhythms underlying the spawning migration of the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus: ontogeny and variation with ambient tidal regime

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Abstract

Spawning female blue crabs, Callinectes sapidus, use ebb-tide transport (ETT) to migrate seaward. In estuaries with semi-diurnal tides, ETT in ovigerous blue crabs is driven by a circatidal rhythm in vertical swimming in which crabs ascend into the water column during ebb tide. The ontogeny of this rhythm was examined by monitoring swimming behavior of females before the pubertal molt, females that had recently undergone the molt but had not yet produced a clutch of eggs, and ovigerous females from an estuary with strong semi-diurnal tides. To assess variation in swimming rhythms with ambient tidal regime, swimming rhythms of ovigerous females from semi-diurnal (Beaufort, North Carolina), diurnal (St. Andrew Bay, Florida), and non-tidal (South River, North Carolina) estuaries were compared. Experiments were conducted during the summers of 2006–2008. Female crabs prior to oviposition had variable endogenous swimming rhythms (circadian, circatidal, or circalunidian). Ovigerous females from estuaries with semi-diurnal and diurnal tides had pronounced circatidal or circalunidian rhythms with swimming during the time of ambient ebb tide. Swimming rhythms of several ovigerous crabs switched between circatidal and circalunidian during the ~5-day observation period. Ovigerous crabs from a non-tidal estuary had a circadian rhythm with vertical swimming around the time of sunset. These results suggest that, while endogenous swimming rhythms are present in some female blue crabs prior to oviposition, rapid seaward movement via ETT in tidal estuaries begins following oviposition of the first clutch of eggs.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Gary and William Cannon for their assistance collecting crabs from South River. We also thank NMFS Panama City Laboratory for the use of their facilities while collecting crabs from St. Andrew Bay as well as for assistance with salinity measurements. Kelly Darnell provided much-appreciated assistance with crab collection and video analysis. Larry Crowder, Anson Hines, and Bill Kirby-Smith provided valuable comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Funding for this study was provided by the North Carolina Sea Grant Blue Crab Research Program (grants 06-Biol-04 and 07-Biol-03).

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  1. M. Zachary Darnell

    Present address: Marine Science Institute, The University of Texas at Austin, 750 Channel View Drive, Port Aransas, TX, 78373, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Duke University Marine Laboratory, Nicholas School of the Environment, 135 Duke Marine Lab. Rd., Beaufort, NC, 28516, USA

    M. Zachary Darnell, Dan Rittschof & Richard B. Forward Jr.

Authors
  1. M. Zachary Darnell
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  2. Dan Rittschof
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  3. Richard B. Forward Jr.
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Correspondence to M. Zachary Darnell.

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Communicated by J. P. Grassle.

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Online resource 2

Actogram of vertical swimming for representative ovigerous female from Beaufort, North Carolina tested with food. This crab had a circatidal rhythm with peak swimming during the time of ebb tide. Ambient light:dark cycle is shown at bottom. Tidal cycle at the collection site is represented by the broken line. Top right panel is autocorrelation output, bottom right panel is MESA spectrum. Only the first 48 h of observations were used for cross-correlation and circular statistical analyses. (TIFF 1195 kb)

Online resource 3

Swimming frequency of ovigerous crabs collected from different estuaries. Ovigerous crabs from Beaufort, North Carolina tested with and without food have been grouped together. Error bars indicate ± 1 SE and numbers inside bars indicates sample size. (TIFF 181 kb)

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Darnell, M.Z., Rittschof, D. & Forward, R.B. Endogenous swimming rhythms underlying the spawning migration of the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus: ontogeny and variation with ambient tidal regime. Mar Biol 157, 2415–2425 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-010-1506-5

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