Abstract
Social deprivation early in life affects further individual development and leads to irreversible behavioural alterations later in life. Although the syndrome is well-studied in vertebrates including humans, its presence in invertebrates has been described only in eusocial insects and cockroaches. Here we show the first evidence of social deprivation in subsocial decapod crustaceans, based on analysis of video-recorded agonistic encounters of juvenile red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii, Girard). In comparison with maternally incubated juveniles, isolated crayfish had altered repertoires, numbers and frequency of agonistic interactions similar to those described in vertebrates. Our results support the view on the syndrome of social deprivation as a ubiquitous trait in species with developed maternal care across diverse taxa.
Highlights
Psychosocial stress related with early prolonged isolation of offspring from their mother has been repeatedly shown to trigger a variety of dramatically and irreversible long-term alterations in behavioural patterns and physiological mechanisms of adaptation of deprived individuals[1,2]
A very different situation exists in invertebrates: many papers have focused on studies of general aggressive behaviour[18], behavioural impairments associated with social deprivation have been studied only in eusocial insects[19,20,21] and in one species of group living cockroaches[22]
The time trend increased over time in maternally incubated (MI) (Solution for Fixed Effects, t = 3.97, P < 0.0001, Fig. 1), an increase was indicated in early separated (ES) (t = 1.78, P = 0.076, Fig. 1), and there was no change with time in mixed group (Mix) (t = 0.16, NS, Fig. 1)
Summary
Psychosocial stress related with early prolonged isolation of offspring from their mother has been repeatedly shown to trigger a variety of dramatically and irreversible long-term alterations in behavioural patterns and physiological mechanisms of adaptation of deprived individuals[1,2]. A very different situation exists in invertebrates: many papers have focused on studies of general aggressive behaviour[18], behavioural impairments associated with social deprivation have been studied only in eusocial insects[19,20,21] and in one species of group living cockroaches[22]. Subsocial crustaceans (species where parents care for their offspring for some period) live not in castes in colonies, but in most cases solitary in adult stage. Freshwater crayfish (Decapoda: Astacidea) are a good model of subsocial crustaceans to test an influence of hypothesized social deprivation on agonistic behaviour, because juveniles stay associated with their mother longer than is necessary to be able to be free-living[24,25,26]. We hypothesized a higher level of aggressiveness in early separated juveniles than in maternally incubated ones
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