The western Atlantic spiny lobster Panulirus argus undergoes an annual migration and is also capable of homing to specific dens in its coral reef environment. Relatively little is known, however, about the orientation cues that lobsters use to guide their movements. To determine whether lobsters can orient to the earth's magnetic field, divers monitored the orientation of lobsters tethered insi...

In 1999, we discovered that juvenile Caribbean spiny lobsters (Panulirus argus) in the Florida Keys were infected with PaV1 (Panulirus argus virus 1), the first naturally occurring pathogenic virus reported from lobsters. The virus profoundly affects their biology and ecology. PaV1 is probably wide-spread in the Caribbean with confirmed infections from the United States (Florida), St. Croix, Me...

Western Atlantic spiny lobsters (Panulirus argus) are superb underwater navigators. Spiny lobsters perform dramatic seasonal offshore migrations and have also been shown to locate and home to specific den sites within the elaborate coral reef environment in which they live. How these animals perform such complex orientation tasks is not known. The study reported here was designed to explore the...

Lobsters are fascinating animals that use chemicals as messages regarding their sexual status, their standing in a social hierarchy, and whether they affiliate with or avoid conspecifics. This, plus their economic importance, makes them important models for the study of intraspecific chemical communication. Our chapter is an overview of these processes, including the types of interactions betwe...

Transmissible pathogens are the bane of social animals, so they have evolved behaviours to decrease the probability of infection. There is no record, however, of social animals avoiding diseased individuals of their own species in the wild. Here we show how healthy, normally gregarious Caribbean spiny lobsters (Panulirus argus) avoid conspecifics that are infected with a lethal virus. Early det...

In Bahía de la Ascensión, Mexico, the fishery for spiny lobsters Panulirus argus is based on the extensive use of casitas, large artificial shelters that can harbor the full size range of these highly gregarious lobsters. The discovery of a pathogenic virus in these lobsters (Panulirus argus virus 1, or PaV1) has raised concern about its potential effects on casita-based fisheries. Because in B...

Studies of marine reserves often describe mean differences in organism size or abundance inside versus outside reserves, but recent work indicates that these differences are influenced by habitat and proximity of sites to reserve borders. In this study, we measured mean effects of reserves and the influence of distance from reserve borders on the number and size of legal (≥82.5 mm carapace leng...

The southern rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii) industry in Australia favours red lobsters, which are usually caught in shallow waters, over paler (brindle) lobsters. This preference is driven partly by the Chinese market, where red is associated with luck and prosperity, and additionally, by the widely held perception within the industry that brindles have greater mortality rates during out of wat...

Shelter dwelling and gregariousness are behavioral strategies used by benthic marine organisms to reduce the risk of predator-induced mortality. For spiny lobsters, the relative and synergistic success of shelter dwelling and aggregation in reducing mortality may vary with the perceived risk of predation as well as the availability and size distribution of conspecifics and shelters. We tested h...