Scottish Association of Marine Science, Scottish Marine Institute, Dunstaffnage, Scotland.
PLoS One. 2013 Oct 14;8(10):e77431. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0077431. eCollection 2013.
The harbour ragworm, Nereis (Hediste) diversicolor is a common intertidal marine polychaete that lives in burrows from which it has to partially emerge in order to forage. In doing so, it is exposed to a variety of predators. One way in which predation risk can be minimised is through chemical detection from within the relative safety of the burrows. Using CCTV and motion capture software, we show that H. diversicolor is able to detect chemical cues associated with the presence of juvenile flounder (Platichthys flesus). Number of emergences, emergence duration and distance from burrow entrance are all significantly reduced during exposure to flounder conditioned seawater and flounder mucous spiked seawater above a threshold with no evidence of behavioural habituation. Mucous from bottom-dwelling juvenile plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) and pelagic adult herring (Clupea harengus) elicit similar responses, suggesting that the behavioural reactions are species independent. The data implies that H. diversicolor must have well developed chemosensory mechanisms for predator detection and is consequently able to effectively minimize risk.
滩栖多毛类环节动物沙蚕（Hediste） Diversicolor 是一种常见的潮间带海洋多毛类环节动物，它生活在洞穴中，为了觅食，它必须部分地从洞穴中出来。在这样做的过程中，它会暴露在各种捕食者面前。一种可以最小化捕食风险的方法是通过在洞穴内的相对安全的地方进行化学检测。我们使用闭路电视和运动捕捉软件表明，H. Diversicolor 能够检测到与幼年比目鱼（Platichthys flesus）存在相关的化学线索。在接触到比目鱼条件海水和比目鱼黏液加海水后，比目鱼黏液加海水的数量、出现持续时间和与洞穴入口的距离都显著减少，没有行为习惯化的证据。来自底栖幼年欧鲽（Pleuronectes platessa）和浮游成年鲱鱼（Clupea harengus）的黏液也会引起类似的反应，这表明这种行为反应与物种无关。这些数据表明，H. Diversicolor 必须具有发达的化学感觉机制来探测捕食者，因此能够有效地降低风险。
