Meeting Abstract
Crayfish are keystone species and impact the freshwater stream environment around themselves through ecosystem engineering. Like other arthropods, they are also capable of regeneration after limb autotomy following a predator attack or a competitive interaction. Nonetheless, little is known about the impacts of this regenerative process on the fitness of these ecologically integral organisms. Here, we ask how regeneration following limb autotomy influences egg production as a measure of juvenile and adult fitness. In the lab, we induced autotomy of one cheliped and then mated and isolated female adult and juvenile crayfishes until egg production. Then, eggs were counted and sized as a measure of female fitness. We found no effect of autotomy and regeneration on adult egg production. However, juvenile egg production was negatively impacted. This difference indicates the existence of an allocation trade-off between sexual organs development and regeneration until maturity. Understanding this tradeoff is an essential step toward developing a better understanding of the evolutionary origins of such complex phenotypes as autotomy and regeneration.
