In October 2007, the Regional Director-General (RDG), Maritimes Region, announced a number of priorities for the Maritimes lobster fishery, including improving conservation measures to provide better protection for large mature female lobsters in particular. At a meeting with the lobster industry in September 2008 to discuss potential new measures, industry raised questions about the biological...

Agonistic behavior of decapod crustaceans occurs in the wild, is highly stereotypical, and is readily quantifiable. Here we explore the persistence of dominance relationships in socially naı̈ve juvenile American lobsters (Homarus americanus) by examining the time frame over which behavior changes as a result of previous fight experience. We paired opponents for three fights: initial; 1 hour late...

Our laboratory has developed several methods for the quantification of stress in crustaceans. An ELISA was developed for the crustacean hyperglycemic hormone (CHH) from the American lobster (Homarus americanus). It is sensitive to as little as 0.2 fmol of peptide. Increases in hemolymph CHH were observed under conditions of hypoxia, elevated temperature, and altered salinity. In addition, eleva...

Slipper (Scyllaridae) and spiny (Palinuridae) lobsters show a complex life cycle with planktonic larval phase, named phyllosoma. This unique form within Achelata (Decapoda) is characterized by transparent dorsoventrally compressed body pair of antennae. conspicuous morphology has been attributed to adaptive specialization life. Early studies suggest that phyllosoma remained constant over the ev...

Recent increases in emergent infectious diseases have raised concerns about the sustainability of some marine species. The complexity and expense of studying diseases in marine systems often dictate that conservation and management decisions are made without quantitative data on population-level impacts of disease. Mark-recapture is a powerful, underutilized, tool for calculating impacts of dis...