Does Shells Type Restraining Influence Relative Growth Rates of Clibanarius antillensis (Crustacea: Decapoda: Anomura: Diogenidae)?

Silveira AR¹, Felipe Servidone Magri¹, Vivian Fransozo², Thiago Elias da Silva¹ and Maria Lucia Negreiros-Fransozo^1*

¹Universidade Estadual Paulista “Júlio de Mesquita Filho”, Instituto de Biociências, Zoology Department, NEBECC, Botucatu Campus, 18618-970 Botucatu (SP), Brazil

²Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia, Natural Science Department- Zoology, Campus de Vitória da Conquista, 45031-900 Vitória da Conquista (BA), Brazil

*Corresponding Author : Maria Lucia Negreiros-Fransozo
Universidade Estadual Paulista “Júlio de Mesquita Filho”, Instituto de Biociências, Zoology Department, NEBECC, Botucatu Campus, 18618-970 Botucatu (SP)- Brazil
Tel: +55-14-38800632
E-mail: luciafransozo@gmail.com

Received: July 03, 2017 Accepted: July 25, 2017 Published: July 31, 2017

Citation: Silveira AR, Magri FS, Fransozo V, Silva TE, Negreiros-Fransozo ML, et al. (2017) Does Shells Type Restraining Influence Relative Growth Rates of Clibanarius antillensis (Crustacea: Decapoda: Anomura: Diogenidae)? J Mar Biol Oceanogr 6:2. doi: 10.4172/2324-8661.1000175

Does Shells Type Restraining Influence Relative Growth Rates of Clibanarius antillensis (Crustacea: Decapoda: Anomura: Diogenidae)?

This study aimed to analyze the relation of gastropod shells and hermit crab sizes and the relative growth (rates) of Clibanarius antillensis based on the allometric technique. We sampled hermit crabs on a rocky shore from Cairu municipality, coast of Bahia, Brazil in 2011. These hermit crabs only occupied shells of one species of gastropod, Cerithium atratum, despite occurrence of other gastropod species in the area. The relative growth of C. antillensis had a negative allometric standard for shield length vs. shield width, which indicates that the carapace shield grows at a higher rate in length than in width. This finding is the opposite of that found in other studies for hermit crabs. We suspect that the use of only one gastropod shell type may be modulating growth rates of C. antillensis at the study site.