Choose your weapon: defensive behavior is associated with morphology and performance in scorpions.

ABSTRACT: Morphology can be adaptive through its effect on performance of an organism. The effect of performance may, however, be modulated by behavior; an organism may choose a behavioral option that does not fully utilize its maximum performance. Behavior may therefore be decoupled from morphology and performance. To gain insight into the relationships between these levels of organization, we combined morphological data on defensive structures with measures of defensive performance, and their utilization in defensive behavior. Scorpion species show significant variation in the morphology and performance of their main defensive structures; their chelae (pincers) and the metasoma ("tail") carrying the stinger. Our data show that size-corrected pinch force varies to almost two orders of magnitude amo

SUBMITTER: van der Meijden A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3827323 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature