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Environmental and Physiological Controls of Blue Crab Avoidance Behavior During Exposure to Hypoxia

¹ North Carolina State University, Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-8208
² North Carolina State University, Center for Marine Sciences and Technology, 303 College Circle, Morehead City, North Carolina 28557
³ North Carolina State University, Department of Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, 4700 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, North Carolina 27606

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed at current address. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Curriculum for the Environment and Ecology, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514. E-mail: gwbell{at}unc.edu

Generalizing the impacts of hypoxia on aquatic animal populations is difficult due to differences in behavioral and physiological responses among individuals as well as varying hydrodynamics of hypoxic events. Information on which environmental cues animals use to avoid hypoxia and how abiotic covariates and physiology influence avoidance behavior is lacking. Our laboratory flume studies quantified the interacting effects of hydrography (dissolved oxygen [DO], temperature, and salinity), hydrodynamics (rate of DO decline and current speed), and physiological state on avoidance behaviors of blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus). Changes in DO stimulated increased rates of movement, regardless of whether the change resulted in hypoxia. Increased rates of DO decline stimulated faster movement rates under hypoxic conditions because crabs spent less time in hypoxia compared to crabs under conditions of slow rate of DO decline. Blue crabs that had hemocyanin structures with a high affinity for O₂ (hypoxia-tolerant) were less active under hypoxic conditions than conspecifics with hemocyanins with a low O₂ affinity, suggesting that physiological state influences behavioral responses to stressors. These results provide a mechanistic understanding of how physiological acclimation and hypoxia hydrodynamics may influence population dynamics.