Ecological and evolutionary implications of allometric growth in stomach size of brachyuran crabs

PLoS One. 2018 Nov 9;13(11):e0207416. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0207416. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Individual characteristics often scale allometrically with organismal body size and the form of this scaling can be influenced by ecological and evolutionary factors. Examining the specific form of this scaling can therefore yield important insights into organismal ecology and evolution and the ability of organisms to respond to future environmental changes. We examine the intraspecific allometric scaling of stomach volume with body mass for 17 species of brachyuran crabs. We also examine how this scaling is influenced by dietary strategy, maximum body size, and activity level, all while controlling for phylogenetic relationships between the species. We show that the slope and intercept of the allometric scaling relationships vary across species and are influenced by all three ecological factors examined here, as well as by evolutionary relationships. These results highlight potential divergent strategies in stomach growth taken by different groups of crabs and highlight potential limitations that may be imposed on the ability of this group of organisms to respond to warming trends expected with climate change.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Biological Evolution*
  • Body Size / physiology*
  • Brachyura* / anatomy & histology
  • Brachyura* / physiology
  • Climate Change*
  • Species Specificity
  • Stomach* / anatomy & histology
  • Stomach* / physiology

Associated data

  • Dryad/10.5061/dryad.3gc7rj6

Grants and funding

This project was funded by support from Brigham Young University and by the Ministry of National Education, Republic of Turkey (awarded to MRG). We thank Douglas Glazier and Lars Witting for comments that greatly improved the manuscript. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.