Preliminary Study on Bradycardia in Scylla serrata (Forskål, 1775) in Response to Pure Tone Stimuli
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Abstract
There are growing concerns about the effects of human-generated sounds on aquatic animals. Mud crabs of the genus Scylla, which are economically important species, are typically farmed along coastal areas that are potentially threatened by man-made noise. We observed the heart rate of mud crabs Scylla serrata (Forskål, 1775) exposed to pure tones lasting 1 s (short-duration) and 30 s (long-duration). Crabs were exposed to both short- and long-duration sounds at eight frequencies (ranging from 100 Hz to 2,200 Hz). Our results revealed the following: (1) the initial sound elicited bradycardia across all experimental conditions; (2) both playing sound and the cessation of the sound elicited bradycardia in many long-duration sound tests; and (3) bradycardia disappeared following repeated exposures to sound; however (4) bradycardia was sustained in nearly all short-duration exposures at frequencies ≤1,000 Hz. We suspect that the crabs may have been more stressed than expected, as we observed sustained bradycardia frequently following short-duration exposures to lower acoustic frequencies and twice in long-duration exposure tests. The growth and health of reared crabs may be negatively impacted, which could subsequently affect the production.
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