Environmental factors affecting sexual size dimorphism in the hermit crab Pagurus middendorffii
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 October 1999
Abstract
The effects of shell resource and interspecific competition on sexual size dimorphism of the hermit crab, Pagurus middendorffii (Decapoda: Paguridae), were examined from population comparisons. Degree of size dimorphism and mean shell size occupied by male and female P. middendorffii differed among adjacent sites, and there was a significant correlation between them. Although most large P. middendorffii occupied large Chlorostoma lischkei shells in both shell-limited and shell-unlimited populations, P. lanuginosus, a sympatric species, occupied large C. lischkei shells more frequently than P. middendorffii did in a shell-limited population. Environmental factors, shell availability and interspecific competition for shells, might play important roles in determining the degree of sexual size dimorphism of P. middendorffii.
- Type
- SHORT COMMUNICATION
- Information
- Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 79 , Issue 5 , October 1999 , pp. 953 - 954
- Copyright
- © 1999 Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom
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