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Inter-individual variation partially explains patterns of orientation on steeply sloped substrata in a keystone grazer, the limpet Cellana tramoserica

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Abstract

Our knowledge of why animals orientate in specific directions is less than for any other type of distribution; this is especially true for intertidal organisms. Understanding the behaviour of intertidal organisms on vertical/near-vertical surfaces is important as the relative abundance of these surfaces will increase with elevated sea levels. Orientation by marine organisms is a fundamental behaviour, but most studies have addressed environmental influences on orientation. It is equally true that habitat properties, intraspecific interactions and intrinsic individual variation will be important. Populations of the limpet Cellana tramoserica exhibit a downwards bias in orientation on steeply sloped substrata (>60°), but orientation varies among individuals. We tested whether differences in orientation are explained by inter-individual behavioural variations, in a population examined for 4 months in each of 2 years. Significantly, more limpets than expected consistently orientated downwards (“downwards facing limpets”) and additionally the majority of limpets were consistently found on steeply sloped substrata. The number of “downwards facing limpets” we found was not sufficiently large enough to completely explain population-level patterns of orientation, as only 8 % of limpets consistently faced downwards compared to 39 % of a population facing downwards at any given point in time. Also, individuals that consistently occupied steeply sloped substrata were no more likely to orientate downwards than others. We suggest that intrinsic inter-individual variation among limpets influences orientation. The temporal variation in individual orientation observed emphasises the requirement for adequate temporal replication in experiments before proposing causal explanations.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award to C. M. L. F with additional funding from the Coastal and Marine Ecosystems group. Colleagues in CME provided critical advice and feedback. We thank D. Hall for shellfish tags. We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their feedback.

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  1. Clarissa M. L. Fraser

    Present address: The Swire Institute of Marine Science and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Coastal and Marine Ecosystems, School of Biological Sciences, Marine Ecology Laboratories (A11), The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Clarissa M. L. Fraser & Ross A. Coleman

  2. School of Biological Sciences, Heydon-Laurence Building (A08), The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Frank Seebacher

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  1. Clarissa M. L. Fraser
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Correspondence to Clarissa M. L. Fraser.

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Fraser, C.M.L., Coleman, R.A. & Seebacher, F. Inter-individual variation partially explains patterns of orientation on steeply sloped substrata in a keystone grazer, the limpet Cellana tramoserica . Aquat Ecol 49, 189–197 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-015-9515-6

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