The WFSU Ecology Blog
  • Home
    • About
    • EcoAdventures
      • Kayak and Canoe Adventures
      • Hiking
      • Wildlife Watching
    • Observations From the Field
      • White Pelicans Visit Dr. Charles L. Evans Pond in Tallahassee
      • An April Walk at Ochlockonee River WMA
      • Nesting Raptors at Honeymoon Island State Park
    • WFSU Public Media Home
  • Documentaries
    • EcoCitizen Show | Seasons in South Tallahassee
    • Red Wolf Family Celebrates First Year at the Tallahassee Museum
    • Roaming the Red Hills
    • Oyster Doctors
    • Testing the Ecology of Fear
    • EcoShakespeare
    • Stories from the Apalachicola
    • Classic WFSU Ecology Documentaries
  • Habitats
    • Estuaries
      • Oyster Reef
        • The Effects of Predators and Fear on Oyster Reefs
        • Apalachicola Oyster Research
        • Animal Species in a North Florida Intertidal Oyster Reef
        • Oyster Reef Ecology | On the Reef
      • Salt Marsh
        • In the Grass- Salt Marsh Biodiversity Study
        • Plants and Animals of a North Florida Salt Marsh
        • Salt Marsh Ecology | In the Grass
      • Seagrass Bed
        • Predatory Snails, and Prey, of the Bay Mouth Bar Seagrass Beds
      • In the Grass, On the Reef Glossary
    • Waterways Big and Small
      • Aucilla/ Wacissa Watershed
      • Apalachicola Basin
        • Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines | Virtual Field Trip
        • The Age of Nature Screening & Discussion | The Future of the Apalachicola
        • Apalachicola River and Bay
        • Apalachicola RiverTrek | Kayaking, Camping, & Hiking the River Basin
    • Longleaf Pine & Fire Ecology
  • Backyard Habitat
    • Backyard Blog
      • The Backyard Bug Blog 2018
      • Backyard Blog January 2019
      • Backyard Blog February 2019
      • Backyard Blog March 2019
      • Backyard Blog May 2019
      • Backyard Blog April 2019
      • Backyard Blog June 2019
      • Backyard Blog July 2019
      • Backyard Blog August 2019
      • Backyard Blog September 2019
      • Backyard Blog October through December 2019
      • Backyard Blog January 2020
      • Backyard Blog February and March 2020
      • Backyard Blog April 2020
      • Backyard Blog May 2020
      • Backyard Blog June 2020
      • July and August 2020 Backyard Blog
      • Backyard Blog September/ October 2020
      • Backyard Blog November/ December 2020
      • Backyard Ecology Blog | 2021
    • Backyard Flora and Fauna
      • Bees of North Florida and South Georgia
      • The Seasonality of Bees (and Bee Plants) in North Florida
      • Woody Vines of North Florida
      • Flies of North Florida are More Diverse than You’d Think
      • The Case for Weeds, Our Unsung Florida Native Plants
      • Devil’s Walkingstick: Your New Favorite Thorny Pollinator Plant?
      • Florida Native Milkweed | Tips for Growing Your Monarch Friendly Garden
      • Mistletoe | A Parasite for the Holidays (But Maybe We Like it Anyway?)
    • Florida Friendly Seasonal Planting Guide
    • Pollinator and Gardening Posts
    • Gardening Web Resources
Kayak and Canoe Adventures
RiverTrek 2021: Five Days on the Apalachicola River
Lower Lake Lafayette: Kayak Tallahassee’s Hidden Swamp
Chipola River Paddling Trail | The Ovens and...
Kayaking Bald Point | Adventure on a Living...
Wacissa Springs Adventure | Kayaking a Wild Florida...
A Geologist’s View of the Apalachicola River |...
Upper Chipola River Kayak Adventure | Ghosts &...
Tate’s Hell & the Apalachicola River Delta |...
Kayak Scouting Mission on the Ochlockonee Water Trail
Merritt’s Mill Pond | Kayaking and Spring Caves

The WFSU Ecology Blog

  • Home
    • About
    • EcoAdventures
      • Kayak and Canoe Adventures
      • Hiking
      • Wildlife Watching
    • Observations From the Field
      • White Pelicans Visit Dr. Charles L. Evans Pond in Tallahassee
      • An April Walk at Ochlockonee River WMA
      • Nesting Raptors at Honeymoon Island State Park
    • WFSU Public Media Home
  • Documentaries
    • EcoCitizen Show | Seasons in South Tallahassee
    • Red Wolf Family Celebrates First Year at the Tallahassee Museum
    • Roaming the Red Hills
    • Oyster Doctors
    • Testing the Ecology of Fear
    • EcoShakespeare
    • Stories from the Apalachicola
    • Classic WFSU Ecology Documentaries
  • Habitats
    • Estuaries
      • Oyster Reef
        • The Effects of Predators and Fear on Oyster Reefs
        • Apalachicola Oyster Research
        • Animal Species in a North Florida Intertidal Oyster Reef
        • Oyster Reef Ecology | On the Reef
      • Salt Marsh
        • In the Grass- Salt Marsh Biodiversity Study
        • Plants and Animals of a North Florida Salt Marsh
        • Salt Marsh Ecology | In the Grass
      • Seagrass Bed
        • Predatory Snails, and Prey, of the Bay Mouth Bar Seagrass Beds
      • In the Grass, On the Reef Glossary
    • Waterways Big and Small
      • Aucilla/ Wacissa Watershed
      • Apalachicola Basin
        • Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines | Virtual Field Trip
        • The Age of Nature Screening & Discussion | The Future of the Apalachicola
        • Apalachicola River and Bay
        • Apalachicola RiverTrek | Kayaking, Camping, & Hiking the River Basin
    • Longleaf Pine & Fire Ecology
  • Backyard Habitat
    • Backyard Blog
      • The Backyard Bug Blog 2018
      • Backyard Blog January 2019
      • Backyard Blog February 2019
      • Backyard Blog March 2019
      • Backyard Blog May 2019
      • Backyard Blog April 2019
      • Backyard Blog June 2019
      • Backyard Blog July 2019
      • Backyard Blog August 2019
      • Backyard Blog September 2019
      • Backyard Blog October through December 2019
      • Backyard Blog January 2020
      • Backyard Blog February and March 2020
      • Backyard Blog April 2020
      • Backyard Blog May 2020
      • Backyard Blog June 2020
      • July and August 2020 Backyard Blog
      • Backyard Blog September/ October 2020
      • Backyard Blog November/ December 2020
      • Backyard Ecology Blog | 2021
    • Backyard Flora and Fauna
      • Bees of North Florida and South Georgia
      • The Seasonality of Bees (and Bee Plants) in North Florida
      • Woody Vines of North Florida
      • Flies of North Florida are More Diverse than You’d Think
      • The Case for Weeds, Our Unsung Florida Native Plants
      • Devil’s Walkingstick: Your New Favorite Thorny Pollinator Plant?
      • Florida Native Milkweed | Tips for Growing Your Monarch Friendly Garden
      • Mistletoe | A Parasite for the Holidays (But Maybe We Like it Anyway?)
    • Florida Friendly Seasonal Planting Guide
    • Pollinator and Gardening Posts
    • Gardening Web Resources
Oyster Reef Ecology | On the ReefWildlife in North Florida- Critters Big and Small

Pea Crab Infestation!

by Tanya March 22, 2012
by Tanya March 22, 2012 1 comment
Click to subscribe to the WFSU Ecology Blog
Tanya Rogers FSU Coastal & Marine Lab

IGOR chip- biogeographic 150Serendipitous results are surely one of the most rewarding parts of experimental research. This past winter, I spent many weeks processing various frozen components of great cage experiment of last summer, including the several hundred spat tiles placed inside the different cages at all sites along the coast. It was while delicately measuring and shucking these little spat that I made one such unanticipated finding: Our oyster spat, unbeknownst to us, had become infested with pea crabs.

Pea crabs at various stages of development. The ones in the center are young crabs, as they appear in the stages immediately following infection of an oyster. The ones on the right are older, harder-carapaced crabs (most likely males, which may leave their hosts in search of oysters harboring females). The crab on the left is a mature female. The developing, orange-colored gonads are visible through the female’s thin carapace. Since mature females never leave the their host oyster, their carapaces (shells) are very soft and thin. This makes them very… squishy and pea-like.

You might have had the surprise of finding an oyster pea crab (Zaops ostreus) while shucking an oyster yourself. These small crabs live inside oysters and are a type of kleptoparasite, meaning they steal food from their hosts. An oyster gathers food by filtering water over its gills, trapping edible particles on its gills, and carrying those particles to its mouth using cilia (tiny hairs). Pea crabs sit on the gills and pick out some of the food the oyster traps before the oyster can consume it. By scurrying around inside oysters, pea crabs can also damage the gills mechanically. The pea crabs, like most parasites, don’t kill their hosts, but they can certainly affect the oysters’ overall health.

pea crabs 2

A gravid (egg-bearing) female pea crab next to the oyster spat in which she was living. The female, like most crabs, carries her eggs until they hatch, and then releases her larvae into the water. The baby crabs, when ready, will locate a new oyster host by smell.

As I was processing the oyster spat from all of our experimental sites (Florida to North Carolina) for survivorship, growth, and condition, I began to notice a surprising number of pea crabs living inside them and started to keep track. What’s interesting was not so much that the oysters had pea crabs, but that the percentage of oysters infected with pea crabs varied geographically. For instance, only about 25% had pea crabs in St. Augustine, Florida, whereas over 70% were infected at Skidaway Island, Georgia. Keep in mind that these spat all came from the same source and the same hatchery, so they all had the same starting condition. What’s more, I found that spat in Georgia which had naturally recruited to the tiles from the surrounding waters (of which there were quite a lot, and for which I also processed condition) rarely had pea crabs. Only about 5% of the recruits had pea crabs at Skidaway Island, Georgia. Why is there this huge difference in infection rate? Do the local oysters know something that the transplants don’t? How do these patterns in pea crab infection relate to other geographic patterns we’re finding? How does pea crab infection affect oyster condition? These and many more questions await to be addressed in further analyses and future experiments.

Click to subscribe to the WFSU Ecology Blog
Facebook Comments
biogeographicFlorida State UniversityFSU Coastal and Marine Labmarine ecologyNational Science FoundationNSFoyster reefoyster spatpea crabscience
1 comment
0
FacebookTwitterGoogle +Pinterest
Tanya

Tanya Rogers was Dr. David Kimbro’s research assistant and worked primarily on the collaborative study of oyster biogeography and ecosystem processes featured in this blog. She has a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Puget Sound in Washington, and has done undergraduate research at Bodega Marine Laboratory and Friday Harbor Laboratories. She is interested in marine community ecology and conservation, as well as natural history and scientific illustration. She is now a graduate student for Dr. Kimbro at Northeastern University.

previous post
Sounds of the Oyster Reef
next post
Rare Plants and Fire History | St. Joe Bay Buffer Preserve

Related Posts

The Benefits of Coastal Living

November 8, 2012

Kids Release Striped Newts, Host a Video About...

July 26, 2022

Video: Turtles, Octopus, & Crabs at the Gulf...

December 5, 2013

Tallahassee Butterfly Count 2017: Know Your Local Species

November 23, 2017

Oyster Study: Year Two, Under Way in a...

June 1, 2011

Diversity- Getting by With a Little Help From...

August 1, 2013

What is the WFSU EcoCitizen Project?

January 31, 2019

The Snowy Plover Factory | Visiting Shorebirds on...

August 30, 2018

Day 6: October Oyster Push- Home Stretch

October 28, 2010

Recycling Oyster Shells for Choctawhatchee Bay

May 29, 2013

1 comment

david cole November 21, 2012 - 11:31 am

I’ve been pondering the thought of allowing oysters as a pre-filter by allocating them at the bottom of my super intensive raceways for white shrimp. My concern, however, is when the oysters decide to spawn. Could you imagine this spawn/spat being an edible food source for shrimp throughout their life cycle?
My hope is that I can build a small scale intensive runway system that uses natural filters such as oysters, and hydroponic juvenile dwarf coconut trees. However, I’m having a difficult time determining if oysters could be used as a potential filtration and food source for my white shrimp.

Comments are closed.

Search

Subscribe

Subscribe to receive more outdoor adventures, and an in depth look at our local forests and waterways by Email.

If you do not receive a verification e-mail, check your spam folder.

Category

WFSU-FM Environmental Stories

  • Florida’s insurer of last resort surpasses 1 million policies
  • The North Florida Wildlife Center in Jefferson County welcomes a giant anteater
  • Florida offers a stopgap measure amid concerns about downgrades of property insurance companies
  • Florida finalizes a land deal in the Panhandle for the state wildlife corridor
  • Plastic bottles, cans could become off-limits on Spring Creek

Twitter

Tweets by wfsuIGOR

iNaturalist

iNaturalist became a part of the WFSU Ecology Blog during the EcoCitizen Project in 2019.  Since then, we’ve used it to help identify the many plants and animals we see on our shoots.  And on the Backyard Blog, we show how it can be used to identify weeds and garden insects, to help figure out what’s beneficial or a possible pest.  Below is the iNaturalist profile belonging to WFSU Ecology producer Rob Diaz de Villegas.

iNaturalist.org

Thumb
View robdv’s observations »

My Garden of a Thousand Bees | NOW STREAMING

PBS Nature: My Garden of a Thousand Bees

NOW STREAMING

My Garden of a Thousand Bees features renowned wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn, who, with the world in lockdown during the summer of 2020, turned his exceptional macrophotography filmmaking skills on his own tiny backyard and the surprising number of wild bee species that live there.

Most Recent

  • Kids Release Striped Newts, Host a Video About It
  • Newly Discovered Crustacean Species Found Only in Lake Jackson
  • Propagating Joy | Finding Love in Gifts and Discarded Nature
  • Latest Indigo Snake Release the Largest at Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve
  • Frosted Flatwoods Salamanders: Recovery, Redundancy, and Fire

Archives

March 2012
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Feb   Apr »

WFSU Ecology YouTube

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Flickr
  • Youtube

@2017 - PenciDesign. All Right Reserved. Designed and Developed by PenciDesign

test title

this is the info in my test popup.