. The Biological bulletin. Biology; Zoology; Biology; Marine Biology. ANEMONE AGONISTIC BEHAVIOR 461. FIGURE 1. A. Anlhopleura xanthogrammica agonistic encounter, Tatoosh Island, Washington. The individual at the top has its acrorhagi (a) inflated on the side facing its neighbor. Scale bar = 5 cm. B. Acrorhagi of a subject anemone prior to contact with an experimentally transplanted anemone in a wire enclosure. Scale bar = 1 cm. C. Acrorhagi tip ectoderm (light patches (p)) adhering to the column of a transplanted anemone (peeling). Scale bar = 1 cm. The short duration of the behavior and the
. The Biological bulletin. Biology; Zoology; Biology; Marine Biology. ANEMONE AGONISTIC BEHAVIOR 461. FIGURE 1. A. Anlhopleura xanthogrammica agonistic encounter, Tatoosh Island, Washington. The individual at the top has its acrorhagi (a) inflated on the side facing its neighbor. Scale bar = 5 cm. B. Acrorhagi of a subject anemone prior to contact with an experimentally transplanted anemone in a wire enclosure. Scale bar = 1 cm. C. Acrorhagi tip ectoderm (light patches (p)) adhering to the column of a transplanted anemone (peeling). Scale bar = 1 cm. The short duration of the behavior and the color similarity between tentacles and acrorhagi make this behavior easy to miss even during many hours of field observation. Also, it appears that water movement is the most common means by which anemones come into contact, as noted by Francis (1973b) for Anthopleura elegantissima. Ane- mones in tide pools or aquaria are thus much less likely to show the behavior. I have seen only two agonistic encounters in tidepools and one of these occurred as I stirred the water by reaching into the pool to measure anemones. My impression from snorkeling observations is that the behavior occurs most frequently during wave action. It takes only 10-15 minutes for the anemones to fully expand when the tide comes in. When the water is a half meter or less deep even small waves knock the anemones into each other. Of all the agonistic behavior observed, most was between anemones 4-6 cm apart (10 pairs) although there were cases where the anemones were 0-3 cm apart (6 pairs). The mean distance between fighting anemones was cm ± cm (n = 16). The entire study area contained 283 Anthopleura xanthogrammica of which 168 were in close contact (<4 cm between bases) with at least one other individual of the same species. During the 1982 study twelve incidents of intraspecific agonistic behavior were observed (out of 98 anemones in potential contact) and 6 incidents of such behavior betwe
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Keywords: ., bookauthorlilliefrankrat, booksubjectbiology, booksubjectzoology
