LOBSTER BEHAVIOR AND CHEMORECEPTION: 
SUBLETHAL EFFECTS OF 
NO. 2 FUEL OIL 
Jelle Atema, Elisa B. Karnofsky 
and Susan Oleszko-Szuts 
Boston University Marine Program 
Marine Biological Laboratory 
Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543 
ABSTRACT 
Lobsters (.Homarus americanus) were exposed in a flow-through oil dosing 
system to the water-accommodated fraction of #2 fuel oil. Behavioral 
observations of feeding efficiency and general behavior, showed that 5-day 
exposure to 0.08 and 0.15 ppm caused significant delays in feeding, without 
causing severe neuromuscular defects. Exposure to 1.5 ppm caused gross 
neuromuscular defects within 24 hours. Recovery was proportional to the 
gravity of observed defects. Neurophysiological experiments on antennular 
chemoreceptors of behaviorally observed animals showed that oil is perceived 
as a chemical stimulus, and can change normal responses to food juices. 
Oil-exposed animals show abnormal, bursting spike patterns, both 
spontaneously and in response to food juice. It remains to be proven that low 
level exposure effects are due to oil interference with chemoreception. 
INTRODUCTION 
Each year more evidence appears which demonstrates the importance of 
chemical signals in the lives of marine animals. The following are just a few 
examples of the broad categories of behavior where chemical signals are of vital 
importance: feeding behavior, both the predator’s detection of live prey and 
the scavenger’s localization of dead bait; the prey’s alarm and escape behavior; 
mating behavior and mate selection; parental brood recognition; and the 
selection of suitable geographic locations, as in larval settling and homestream 
return of migratory species. Interference with chemical signals or with the 
receptors that evolved to receive them could therefore jeopardize animal 
survival without causing immediately obvious deleterious effects on the 
individual. Man’s chemical discharges into the environment, such as large 
amounts of petroleum hydrocarbons in coastal areas, may cause such 
interference. 
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