Characterization of the occupied shells by the hermit crab Clibanarius vittatus (Decapoda, Diogenidae) at Baixio Mirim tideflat, Guaratuba Bay, southern Brazil

Abstract

A characterization of the occupied shells by the hermit crab Clibanarius vittatus was carried out. Hermit crabs were collected in the intertidal zone, during the low spring tide monthly from April 2005 to March 2006. They were sexed and their cephalothoracic shield length (CL) was measured. Shells were identified, dried, weighed and the aperture length (AL) and width (AW) were measured. 1187 crabs were collected (949 males, 216 females and 22 intersexes), which occupied 12 species of gastropod shells. Stramonita haemastoma, Olivancillaria urceus and Dorsanum moniliferum made up 96.55% of the total shell species. Male hermit crabs attained significantly larger sizes than females; therefore, males occupied a wider spectrum of shells in size and weight. A stronger correlation ratio was obtained between CL and AW of S. haemastoma. Last whorl with a rounded shape and a spacious inner area is a common feature of all shell species most frequently occupied by this hermit crab where it occurs. The successful establishment of C. vittatus at Baixio Mirim is mainly due to the appropriately shaped and wide range of size of S. haemastoma shells that were most often occupied by the hermit crabs of the studied population.

Shell use and partitioning of two sympatric species of hermit crabs on a tropical mudflat

“…Sexual dimorphism in size was apparent in both populations of D. lopochir and D. moosai whereby males were larger than females. This has also been reported in other species of Diogenidae, for examples Clibanarius erythropus (Benvenuto and Gherardi, 2001), Clibanarius vittatus (Sampaio and Masunari, 2010) and Clibanarius laevimanus (Gherardi et al, 1994). Since crab size strongly correlates with shell size (Fig.…”

Gastropod shell utilization preferences of hermit crab Clibanarius zebra (Dana, 1852) (Diogenidae: Anomura)

“…A similar pattern has been observed for Isocheles sawayai, which uses the shells of Stramonita haemastoma (Galindo et al, 2008). In the present study, C. zebra utilized Cerithium scabridum maximally (37%), however, it was quite lower than the shell utilization pattern exhibited by hermit crabs C. vittatus (64.7%) and Isocheles sawayai which utilized the gastropod Stramonita namastomai shell to the extent of 64.7 % and 49.87 %, respectively (Fantucci et al, 2008;Sampaio &Masunari, 2010). A high density of Cerithium scabridum was recorded (15 animals/m 2 ) as compared to other shells, which makes it the dominant gastropod species of the habitat and thus represents an adequate shell resource for occupation by hermit crab species.…”

Shell use by sympatric hermit crab species in a seasonally open coastal lagoon in Northeastern Brazil

“…Studies on patterns of shell selection and use on the Brazilian coastline have usually been performed in narrow regions of the geographic distributions of hermit crab species, mainly in the Warm Temperate Southwestern Atlantic marine ecoregion (marine ecoregion, sensu Spalding et al., ), which comprises the southern and southeastern regions of Brazil. These studies have concerned hermit crabs inhabiting subtidal zones (Ayres‐Peres, Quadros, & Mantelatto, ; Ayres‐Peres, Sokolowicz, Kotzian, Rieger, & Santos, ; Bertini & Fransozo, ; Biagi, Meireles, & Mantelatto, ; Dominciano & Mantelatto, ; Fantucci, Biagi, & Mantelatto, ; Frameschi et al., , ; Garcia & Mantelatto, ; Iossi, Biagi, & Mantelatto, ; Leite et al., ; Lima, Andrade, et al., ; Lima, Cobo, Aquino, & Fransozo, ; Mantelatto & Dominciano, ; Mantelatto & Meireles, ; Martinelli & Mantelatto, ; Masunari, Fontanelli, & Sampaio, ; Meireles, Biagi, & Mantelatto, ; Meireles & Mantelatto, ; Meireles et al., ; Negreiros‐Fransozo, Fransozo, Mantelatto, Pinheiro, & Santos, ; Pereira, Zancaner Junior, & Jacobucci, ; Pezzuti, Turra, & Leite, ; Terossi, Espósito, Meireles, Biagi, & Mantelatto, ), inter‐tidal zones (Floeter, Nalesso, Rodrigues, & Turra, ; Garcia & Mantelatto, , ; Leite et al., ; Mantelatto & Garcia, ; Negreiros‐Fransozo, Fransozo, & Hebling, ; Pinheiro, Fransozo, & Negreiros‐Fransozo, ; Sampaio & Masunari, ; Sant'Anna et al., ; Turra & Leite, , , , ) and, to a lesser extent, estuaries (Sant'Anna, Zangrande, Reigada, & Pinheiro, ; Sant'Anna, Zangrande, Reigada, & Severino‐Rodrigues, ).…”