Chemoreception in Turbulent Flow: How Blue Crabs Find TheirPrey

水生生物通常通过识别和遵循溶解在水中的化学线索来寻找猎物。这项工作将确定控制蓝蟹嗅觉中介捕食的气味分子的身份和物理运输。生物化学技术将用于表征化学引诱剂分子，电化学仪器将用于研究气味“羽流”结构的性质，水槽设备将用于将流体动力学过程和边界层考虑与气味羽流结构和捕食成功联系起来。这一结果将对感觉神经生物学、这种重要河口捕食者的野外生态学、水动力学和生态学的生物海洋学考虑具有重要意义，并可能对发展这种主要商业物种的水产养殖产生影响。

Aquatic organisms often find their prey by recognizing and following chemical cues dissolved in the water. This work will determine the identity and physical transport of odorant molecules governing olfactory-mediated predation by the blue crab. Biochemical techniques will be used to characterize the chemical attractant molecules, electrochemical instrumentation will be used to investigate the nature of the odor "plume" structure, and a flume apparatus will be used to link hydrodynamic processes and boundary layer considerations to odor plume structure and predatory success. The results will be important to sensory neurobiology, to field ecology on this important estuarine predator, to biological oceanographic considerations of hydrodynamics and ecology, and are likely to have an impact on developing aquaculture of this major commercial species.