September 11, 2024 — According to a study by researchers at William & Mary’s Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences, the American lobster may be more resilient to the effects of climate change than expected. For the first time, experiments performed at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) have documented how female American lobsters groom their offspring, providing evidence that these behaviors are not significantly impacted by temperature and acidity levels forecasted for Maine’s coastal waters by the end of the century.
The findings are published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.
Despite being one of the largest commercial fisheries in the U.S. with an annual economic impact of more than $460 million in Maine alone, few studies have documented the reproductive behavior of female American lobsters. With the Gulf of Maine warming faster than nearly any other ocean surface on the planet, it’s important to understand how the effects of climate change will impact the sustainability of the species and the fishery it supports.
“Brood grooming by female lobsters has been anecdotally observed, but it had not been quantitatively recorded before,” said Abigail Sisti, who is completing her Ph.D. in Marine Science at the Batten School and is lead author on the study. “In other crustaceans, these behaviors can have a significant impact on the survival of their offspring. Because the environment supporting the lobster fishery is rapidly changing, we wanted to understand how it might impact the way they care for their offspring.”
Female American lobsters can produce thousands of eggs that they hold under their tails for long periods of time, between five to 12 months, as the embryos develop. In other crustaceans, grooming behaviors help clear out parasites, remove dead eggs and facilitate the flow of water carrying oxygen and nutrients through the densely packed egg masses.
The study was part of a larger effort to determine how multiple stressors affect the reproductive success of the species. In this study, the researchers were testing whether increases in water temperatures and acidity had an impact on grooming behaviors and embryo survival.