QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s):
Home     Help     Feedback     Subscriptions     Archive     Search     Table of Contents

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by LAGERSPETZ, K. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by LAGERSPETZ, K.

Journal of Experimental Biology 40,105-110 (1963)
Published by Company of Biologists 1963

Humidity Reactions of Three Aquatic Amphipods, Gammarus Duebeni, G. Oceanicus and Pontoporeia Affinis in the Air

KARI LAGERSPETZ ¹

¹ Tvärminne Zoological Station, University of Helsinki and Department of Zoology, University of Turku

1. Specimens of the Baltic population of the aquatic amphipods Gammarus duebeni and G. oceanicus are able to avoid the lower of two relative humidities of the air when out of water.

2. This humidity reaction is based on the orthokinetic and the klinokinetic types of orientation.

3. G. duebeni is an inhabitant of seashore rock pools and has been reported to move on land between the pools.

4. Although G. oceanicus is seldom exposed to air in nature in the practically tideless Baltic area, it lives between tide-marks in other parts of its distributional range.

5. The third amphipod studied, Pontoporeia affinis, does not discriminate between high and low humidities of the air in an alternative chamber. It is always confined in nature to the sea bottom below the low tide level.

6. Of the three studied species, individuals of G. duebeni move rapidly on dry land and survive a markedly longer time in humid air than the amphipods belonging to the two other species.