Edible crabs “Go West”: migrations and incubation cycle of Cancer pagurus revealed by electronic tags

Hunter, Ewan, Eaton, Derek, Stewart, Christie, Lawler, Andrew and Smith, Michael T (2013) Edible crabs “Go West”: migrations and incubation cycle of Cancer pagurus revealed by electronic tags. PLoS One, 8 (5). ISSN 1932-6203

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Abstract

Crustaceans are key components of marine ecosystems which, like other exploited marine taxa, show seasonable patterns of distribution and activity, with consequences for their availability to capture by targeted fisheries. Despite concerns over the sustainability of crab fisheries worldwide, difficulties in observing crabs’ behaviour over their annual cycles, and the timings and durations of reproduction, remain poorly understood. From the release of 128 mature female edible crabs tagged with electronic data storage tags (DSTs), we demonstrate predominantly westward migration in the English Channel. Eastern Channel crabs migrated further than western Channel crabs, while crabs released outside the Channel showed little or no migration. Individual migrations were punctuated by a 7-month hiatus, when crabs remained stationary, coincident with the main period of crab spawning and egg incubation. Incubation commenced earlier in the west, from late October onwards, and brooding locations, determined using tidal geolocation, occurred throughout the species range. With an overall return rate of 34%, our results demonstrate that previous reluctance to tag crabs with relatively high-cost DSTs for fear of loss following moulting is unfounded, and that DSTs can generate precise information with regards life-history metrics that would be unachievable using other conventional means.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2013 Hunter et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 3 - good health and well-being,sdg 14 - life below water ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/good_health_and_well_being
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Collaborative Centre for Sustainable Use of the Seas
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	12 May 2016 15:00
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2022 01:08
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/58701
DOI:	10.1371/journal.pone.0063991

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