生物谷報(bào)道：研究人員在6月4日的《生物學(xué)快報(bào)》（Biology Letters）網(wǎng)絡(luò)版上報(bào)告了一項(xiàng)研究成果褶邊蝸牛（Nucella lamellosa）能夠嗅出自己的天敵——紅蟹——的氣味，從而生長(zhǎng)出更厚的外殼,。通常認(rèn)為,，如果是一個(gè)不熟悉的敵人，例如歐洲綠蟹,，褶邊蝸牛便不能辨別出前者的氣味,，因此也就不會(huì)加固自己的鎧甲,。然而科學(xué)家最近發(fā)現(xiàn)，蝸?？赡芫哂新?lián)想的本領(lǐng),，他們注意到，如果一種氣味混合了熟悉的天敵和新的味道,，蝸牛將迅速激活自己的防御體系——當(dāng)它們碰到綠蟹時(shí)便是這樣,。（生物谷www.bioon.com）
生物谷推薦原始出處：
Biology Letters，10.1098/rsbl.2008.0204,，Timothy C. Edgell, Christopher J. Neufeld
Experimental evidence for latent developmental plasticity: intertidal whelks respond to a native but not an introduced predator
Timothy C. Edgell1, 2, Christopher J. Neufeld1, 2
1 Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, Bamfield, BC, Canada V0R 1B0
2Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alb. Canada T6G 2E9
Animals with highly inducible traits may show no inducible response when exposed to a related but wholly novel cue. This appears to be true for the intertidal whelk Nucella lamellosa faced with a voracious introduced predator. In the laboratory, we exposed whelks to effluent from two species of predatory crab, the native red rock crab Cancer productus and the invasive European green crab Carcinus maenas. Nucella and Cancer have a long shared history in the northeast Pacific, whereas potential interaction with Carcinus began here less than 10 years ago. Although Nucella responded adaptively to Cancer effluent by increasing shell thickness and decreasing somatic growth, there was no such response to Carcinus. Furthermore, thicker shelled Nucella were less likely to be eaten by Carcinus. Because Nucella produces thicker shells when exposed to Cancer cues, its ability to respond similarly to Carcinus depends only on the coupling of the Carcinus cue to the existing developmental pathways for adaptive changes in shell form. Such coupling of latent plasticity to a novel cue—via genetic changes or associative learning—could explain many cases of rapid phenotypic change following a sudden shift in the environment.
