Den selection by the spiny lobster Panulirus argus: testing attraction to conspecific odors in the field

The spiny lobster Panulirus argus is a model organism in laboratory studies of olfaction, but Little is known about how these animals use odor cues in the field. Juvenile spiny lobsters aggregate in dens, a behavior that may be mediated via chemical attraction to conspecific odor cues. To test this hypothesis, we developed a submersible system capable of perfusing odors of live spiny lobsters into experimental den sites within a natural reef sett ing. Using this system, we tested the effect of conspecific odor on aggrega tive behavior by measuring the frequency of attraction of lobsters to den s ites perfused with either conspecific odor or natural seawater. We found th at juvenile spiny lobsters were attracted preferentially to dens perfused w ith conspecific odor: scented dens captured an average of 2.0 lobsters den( -1) k(-1) and control dens captured an average of 0.60 lobsters den(-1) wk( -1). However, the distribution of the numbers of lobsters attracted to dens each day did not depart significantly from that predicted by a Poisson dis tribution, indicating that each capture was independent of all others. Our data thus suggest that the odor of conspecifics can act as an aggregation c ue by spiny lobsters under field conditions, even in the absence of other s ensory cues.