The use of behaviour in ecotoxicology is expanding, however the lack of standardisation and validation of these assays currently presents a major drawback in moving forward in the development of behavioural assays. Furthermore, there is a current paucity of control data on test species, particularly invertebrate models. In this study we assessed a range of behaviours associated with spatial distribution and locomotion in relation to arena size and shape in two species of amphipod crustacean (Echinogammarus marinus and Gammarus pulex). Arena shape had significant effects on almost all behavioural parameters analysed. Increasing arena size resulted in an increased mean velocity and activity plus increased proportional use of the central zones. These results indicate that 'ceiling effects' may occur in some ecotoxicological studies resulting in potentially 'false' negative effects if careful consideration is not paid to experimental design. Differences in behaviours were observed between the two species of amphipod. For example, G. pulex spend approximately five times (∼20%) more of the available time crossing the central zones of the arenas compared to E. marinus (∼4%) which could have implications on assessing anxiolytic behaviours. The results of this study highlight several behaviours with potential for use in behavioural ecotoxicology with crustaceans but also underscore the need for careful consideration when designing these behavioural assays.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 95. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 16 January 2019.
All research outputs
#509,964
of 28,815,917 outputs
Outputs from PeerJ
#496
of 15,579 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#9,613
of 347,467 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PeerJ
#18
of 585 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 28,815,917 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 15,579 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 17.4. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 585 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
