Sexual dimorphism influencing

feeding rate in fiddler crabs (Uca

tangeri)
By Anne Ambagtsheer (1113372), Elena Auer(1081667), Joëlle van Drie
(1049088), Pascal Stokx (1140302) & Koen Stoop (1172328)

(BHE20303)

Word count: 1454

Date of submission: 21-4-2023

Abstract Figure 1. male fiddler crab eating

In fiddler crabs (Uca tangeri), females have two small pinchers, while males have
one big pincher and one small pincher, this phenomenon is known as sexual
dimorphism. In this study, we want to test whether this difference between male and
female crabs influences their feeding rate, we expect a significant difference in
feeding rate between male and female fiddler crabs. By counting the number of
scoops using multiple recordings taken from fiddler crab, we found that female fiddler
crabs have a higher scoop rate than male fiddler crabs, which indicates that males
do not possess a higher scoop rate to compensate for only having one functional
claw for eating, this could be due to the fact that male fiddler crabs take bigger
scoops to compensate for only having one functional feeding pincher (Lim &
Kalpana, 2011).

Keywords/phrases: Fiddler crabs, feeding rate, sexual differences, sexual

dimorphism, Uca tangeri
Introduction

Sexual dimorphism is a phenomenon that appears across all sorts of animal species.
It is defined by the differences between males and females. Some traits might be
more desirable for the opposite sex, causing that trait to evolve to more extremes. In
fiddler crabs the male crab has one very large pincer, that he cannot use for eating.
Whereas the female crabs have two small pincers that they use both for collecting
food and eating. That made us wonder if the feeding rate differentiates between
sexes in fiddler crabs? The male crab can only use the smaller pincer to collect food.
Female crabs showed a higher scoop rate than their male counterparts, only at low
food concentration they had a lower scoop rate than males (Weissburg, 1992). The
males have one pincer they cannot use for foraging, and their decrease in fitness is
dependent on the distribution of food and the abundance of it in their habitat
(Weissburg, 1992).

We will investigate the feeding behaviour of the fiddler crabs, specifically the Uca
tangeri. They eat plants, algae and dead leftovers from other animals (Wolfrath,
1992). They originally live on the shores on the eastern side of the Atlantic coast.
When the tides are high the crabs hide in their burrows.

We will look at the speed of food intake per pincer. Van Himbeeck et al. (2019) found
that the male crabs spend less of their time looking for food (54%) compared to the
female crabs (63%) of the Uca tangeri. We tested the hypothesis that females will
eat more frequently compared to male fiddler crabs, as they have two pincers to
collect food instead of one.
Methods

Our definition for specific foraging behaviour is; moving claw(s) into the mud and
lifting the mud towards the mouth of the crab (scoop). Sometimes the craps are just
cleaning their mouth. So, we decided to watch very precisely, to only count the real
scoops. We often watched twice, and we slowed down the videos, to be secure
about our observations. We recognized crabs behind rocks or other disrupting
factors in some videos (such as other crabs), which could lead to not reliable counts,
but we decided to still count the scoops.

We got recordings from fiddler crabs, which were provided by the Royal Burgers’
Zoo (May 2021). The recordings were made in the enclosed mangrove section in
their seminatural mudflat of the zoo between 9.00 and 12.00 am. During this period,
the intermediate- low tides were simulated to expose most of the mudflat surface.
We watched 36 videos, n= 36 (18 males/18 females), all around 2 minutes long. We
do not know how old the crabs were. We counted the number of scoops of one crab
per complete video, other crabs were not observed. The videos were made before
the opening hours during COVID-19 pandemic, to prevent any extern human
influences.

The recordings started when the crab was already foraging. They stopped the
recording when the crap stopped foraging before two minutes, and they let the video
continue when the crab is doing something else (ex. walking) while foraging.

Our counts were noted in a table and labelled with the appropriate sex. After that we
divided the total scoops with the total amount of minutes to receive a rate scoop per
second. Finally, we used the Welch two sample t-test (two-tailed) to analyse the
equal means in R Studio.
Results

The two-tailed Welch's test gave us a p-value of 0.0041 which is smaller than
α=0.05. So we reject our null-hypothesis (𝜇 = 𝜇0) and the alternative hypothesis (𝜇 ≠
𝜇0 ) has been shown. It has been shown that the female fiddler crabs (when α=0.05)
do not have the same feeding rate as the male fiddler crabs.

The male crabs brought the food to their mouth 0.0877 times per second on
average, with a standard error of ±0.0768. The female crabs brought the food to their
mouth 1.3946 times per second on average, with a standard error of ±0.1677.

Figure 1. Box plot showing the range and mean of the feeding rate of male (0.0877 times per second ±0.0768)
and female (1.3946 times per second ±0.1677) Uca tangeri
Discussion & Conclusion

Given that male fiddler crabs only have one functional eating claw, we anticipate that
they will compensate for their food intake. Because female crabs have two pincers
accessible, we anticipate that they will consume food relatively more quickly (in this
study, this is referred to as "scoop per second") than male crabs. Therefore, in order
to make up for having just one pincer, our theory is that males will scoop up more
food per scoop. The single larger claw on male crabs may have increased energy
requirements, which could be a significant contributing factor.

The results show that female fiddler crabs feed more frequently than male crabs.
According to Welch’s test (Figure 1), this difference was significant because the P-
value of 0.004096 is smaller than the significance level α = 0.05. This indicates that
the null hypothesis (µ= µ0) should be rejected, and the alternative hypothesis (µ ≠
µ0) is shown. Therefore, it can be inferred that male and female fiddler crabs do not
feed at the same rates (Figure 2).

The study's limitations include the focus on a single species of crabs (in this case,
fiddler crabs), the lack of age information, the fact that the crabs were filmed in a zoo
with artificially created natural conditions, and the fact that the crabs were
occasionally either difficult to see due to poor video quality or out of sight while
passing behind a rock during the observation period.

In literature the feeding rate of crabs has been studied. Between the sexes, there
was a substantial difference in the speed at which crabs carried food to their mouths.
Males ate around half as quickly as females did. (Mokhlesi, Amin & Kamrani, Ehsan
& Backwell, Patricia & Sajjadi, Mirmasoud, 2010). We discovered in our observations
that male crabs moved at an average speed of 0.0877 scoops per second,
compared to females who moved at an average speed of 1.3946 scoops per second.

Other studies have found that the length of the feeding chela, although the same in
both sexes, had a slight adjustment in male crabs. Men have a wider tiny ventral
patch on the tip of the feeding dactyl, which allows them to get greater scoops with
each feeding movement. The male fiddler crabs alter their foraging behaviour in
comparison to females in order to lower the so called “cost” of their bigger main claw
(Lim & Kalpana, 2011).
The male crabs produced more feeding pellets than females, either as a result of
their larger size, more capacity to scoop sediment per handful, or greater use of their
single claw compared to the females’ dual claw. (Mokhlesi, Amin & Kamrani, Ehsan
& Backwell, Patricia & Sajjadi, Mirmasoud, 2010).

A few inferences can be made based on the literature and our own findings. The rate
of eating varies significantly between male and female crabs. male and female crabs
typically consume food at different rates. This is due to the fact that females have
two pincers, but males have just one, to eat their food. The other claw is ineffective
for feeding because it is much larger. The male crab, therefore, takes larger scoops
in order to gather more food to make up for his lack of speed.

It might be feasible to observe how other crab species feed in the future. In this
study, we have only concentrated on the fiddler crab. The zoo, where the movies
were also shot, might have had an impact on the final conduct the crabs displayed.
Therefore, it could be preferable to conduct observations in their natural
environment. Further research on the crab's need for its big claws and the reasons
behind why it wants to preserve them would also be intriguing. It might simply be the
case that sexual selection is a significant factor here. This raises yet another
interesting matter.
References

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Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=eCp7CxWo8eI&list=PLB3y9HPUobLXBXhysrpWzcXFsgRrOWLOA