Micheli F
Institute of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Anim Behav. 1997 Jun;53(6):1149-59. doi: 10.1006/anbe.1996.0349.
The effects of experience on prey and prey-patch choice were compared between two species of marine predatory crabs. The blue crab, Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, is highly mobile and forages in a variety of estuarine and lagoonal habitats. The Atlantic mud crab, Panopeus herbstii H. Milne-Edwards, is smaller and less mobile and is found mostly in oyster reefs and on shelly bottoms. In the laboratory, crabs were offered a choice between two prey types (juvenile hard clams, Mercenaria mercenaria Linne, and juvenile oysters, Crassostrea virginica Gmelin) following a preliminary phase in which crabs were trained to feed on clams only, oysters only or a mixture of the two prey types. In field enclosures, crabs were offered a choice between patches of juvenile hard clams located in an inter-tidal salt marsh and in an adjacent unvegetated inter-tidal flat after they were trained to feed in either one of the two habitat types. Both in the laboratory prey-choice and the field prey-patch choice experiments, blue crabs modified their foraging behaviour depending on previous experience. The effect of experience on their foraging behaviour did not diminish after 24 hours. Experience had no significant effects on the foraging behaviour of mud crabs. Differences in the ecological contexts (e.g. in the variability of prey quality and availability) in which the two species forage may explain the greater effect of experience on the blue crab foraging behaviour, although alternative explanations cannot be ruled out.
对两种海洋捕食性螃蟹的猎物及猎物斑块选择上的经验效应进行了比较。蓝蟹（Callinectes sapidus Rathbun）行动高度灵活，在各种河口和泻湖栖息地觅食。大西洋泥蟹（Panopeus herbstii H. Milne-Edwards）体型较小且行动较不灵活，主要见于牡蛎礁和有贝壳的海底。在实验室中，在一个前期阶段让螃蟹分别只以蛤蜊、只以牡蛎或两种猎物的混合物为食进行训练后，为螃蟹提供两种猎物类型（幼体硬壳蛤，Mercenaria mercenaria Linne，和幼体牡蛎，Crassostrea virginica Gmelin）供其选择。在野外围场中，在让螃蟹在两种栖息地类型之一中训练取食后，为它们提供位于潮间带盐沼和相邻无植被潮间带滩涂的幼体硬壳蛤斑块供其选择。在实验室猎物选择和野外猎物斑块选择实验中，蓝蟹都根据先前的经验改变了它们的觅食行为。经验对其觅食行为的影响在24小时后并未减弱。经验对泥蟹的觅食行为没有显著影响。两种螃蟹觅食所处的生态环境差异（例如猎物质量和可获得性的变异性）可能解释了经验对蓝蟹觅食行为有更大影响，不过也不能排除其他解释。
