Interactive effects of predation pressure and insecticide (temefos) toxicity on populations of the marsh fiddler crab Uca pugnax

Abstract

The interaction of predation pressure with lethal and sublethal effects of temefos (Abate^®) an organophosphorous insecticide, were studied in field populations of Uca pugnax (S.I. Smith). Changes in fiddler crab population densities were followed in open-marsh temefos-treated and untreated test plots and in treated and untreated plots which were caged over to reduce predation by marsh birds. Temefos significantly reduced the population density of U. pugnax in the open test plots but not in the caged plots. These results indicate that temefos has a primarily sublethal effect on the crabs, the effect becoming lethal only after interaction with avian predation. Evidence from the presence of a time-lag effect in the population decrease, from a calculated predation index, and from laboratory studies reported elsewhere of behavioral alteration by temefos also supports the conclusion that temefos primarily impairs the escape response of U. pugnax: this leads to increased predation and subsequently to a decreased fiddler crab population. Such studies of sublethal effects of toxicants and field studies of interactions of lethal and sublethal effects of such compounds with natural population dynamics of affected species are necessary to evaluate possible effects of toxicants on populations.