Background matching in the brown shrimp Crangon crangon: adaptive camouflage and behavioural-plasticity.

ABSTRACT: A combination of burrowing behaviour and very efficient background matching makes the brown shrimp Crangon crangon almost invisible to potential predators and prey. This raises questions on how shrimp succeed in concealing themselves in the heterogeneous and dynamic estuarine habitats they inhabit and what type of environmental variables and behavioural factors affect their colour change abilities. Using a series of behavioural experiments, we show that the brown shrimp is capable of repeated fast colour adaptations (20% change in dark pigment cover within one hour) and that its background matching ability is mainly influenced by illumination and sediment colour. Novel insights are provided on the occurrence of non-adaptive (possibly stress) responses to background changes after long-time

SUBMITTER: Siegenthaler A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5818513 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature