Individual marking of soft-bodied subtidal invertebrates in situ - A novel staining technique applied to the giant plumose anemone Metridium farcimen (Tilesius, 1809).

Christopher D Wells,Kenneth P Sebens,Robert E Steele

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0188263

Christopher D Wells, Kenneth P Sebens + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188263

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Nov 21, 2017
Citations: 3	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Washington, Luxel (United States)

Abstract

The ability to recognize individuals and track growth over time is crucial to population dynamics research as well as studies of animal behavior. Invertebrates are particularly difficult to track as they often molt, have regenerative capabilities, or lack hard parts to attach markers. We tested, in laboratory and field studies, a new way of marking sea anemones (order Actiniaria) by injection of three vital stains (i.e., neutral red, methylene blue, and fluorescein). Neutral red and methylene blue did not affect growth or survival, but fluorescein was lethal at high concentrations. Marked individuals could be identified up to seven months after injection with neutral red, six weeks with methylene blue, and three days with low concentrations of fluorescein. Neutral red could be used for long-term monitoring of growth and survival in the field, and in combination with methylene blue could be used to mark individuals in distinguishable patterns for short-term studies such as examining predator-prey interactions, movement of individuals, and recruitment survival.

Highlights

The ability to recognize individuals and track growth over time is crucial to population dynamics research, animal behavior studies, as well as to parameterize bioenergetics models [1, 2]
Neither methylene blue nor neutral red had significant effects on growth in both laboratory and field experiments (p>0.05 for both, Fig 1), sample size was small in the field experiment (n = 10 per treatment)
One individual injected with neutral red and one control anemone were lost during the laboratory experiment, but were recovered in the drain trap

Summary

Introduction

The ability to recognize individuals and track growth over time is crucial to population dynamics research, animal behavior studies, as well as to parameterize bioenergetics models [1, 2]. Several methods for marking individuals have been used on marine invertebrates including the use of inserted tags, external tags or colors applied to hard parts, and staining techniques (e.g., [3,4,5,6]). Invertebrates often lack hard parts to attach markers, molt, or have regenerative capabilities and these methods frequently involve removing the animal from the field to mark them. External staining techniques have been used to mark sea anemones (order Actiniaria) [3]. The method used by Sebens [3, 7,8,9,10] requires the anemone to either be exposed during a low tide or taken out into the air to apply the stain.

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