Animal communication theory predicts that low-frequency cheating should be common in generally honest signalling systems. However, perhaps because cheats are designed to go undetected, there are few examples of dishonest signals in natural populations. Here we present what we believe is the first example of a dishonest signal which is used commonly by males to attract mates and fight sexual riv...

Human population growth and development have heavily degraded coastal ecosystems with cascading impacts across multiple trophic levels. Understanding both the direct and indirect trophic effects of human activities is important for coastal conservation. In New England, recreational overfishing has triggered a regional trophic cascade. Predator depletion releases the herbivorous purple marsh cra...

Male fiddler crabs (genus Uca) have an enlarged major claw that is used during fights. In most species, 50% of males have a major claw on the left and 50% on the right. In Uca vocans vomeris, however, less than 1.4% of males are left-clawed. Fights between opponents with claws on the same or opposite side result in different physical alignment of claws, which affects fighting tactics. Left-claw...

Among semi-terrestrial fiddler crabs, three species from the subgenus Uca (sensu stricto) appear to be basal in the phylogeny of the genus: Uca major (Herbst 1782-1804), Uca maracoani (Latreille 1802-1803) and Uca tangeri (Eydoux 1835). These species evolved vicariantly as tectonic plates separated to form the Atlantic Ocean. Currently, the three species, found in Africa, South America, and the...

Predator avoidance behaviour costs time, energy and opportunities, and prey animals need to balance these costs with the risk of predation. The decisions necessary to strike this balance are often based on information that is inherently imperfect and incomplete because of the limited sensory capabilities of prey animals. Our knowledge, however, about how prey animals solve the challenging task ...

the distribution, body size, and egg diameter and volume of ovigerous blue swimming crabs, portunus pelagicus , were examined according to habitat type and egg color in lasongko bay, central buton, indonesia between april 2013 and march 2014. ovigerous female crabs were sampled using gillnets and traps at seven stations. based on the results, the ovigerous female crabs with yellow to dark gray ...

A fundamental assumption of today's molecular genetics paradigm is that complex morphology emerges from the combined activity of low-level processes involving proteins and nucleic acids. An inherent characteristic of such nonlinear encodings is the difficulty of creating the genetic and epigenetic information that will produce a given self-assembling complex morphology. This 'inverse problem' i...

This study explores the evolution of molluscivory in the marine teleost family Sciaenidae by comparing the motor activity patterns of the pharyngeal muscles of two closely related taxa, the molluscivorous black drum (Pogonias cromis) and the generalist red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus). Muscle activity patterns were recorded simultaneously from eight pharyngeal muscles. Electromyographic (EMG) act...