THE OCCURRENCE OF MANTIS SHRIMP RISSOIDES DESMARESTI OFF THE SUFFOLK COAST

MANTIS SHRIMPS OFF THE SUFFOLK COAST

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THE OCCURRENCE OF MANTIS SHRIMP RISSOIDES DESMARESTI (CRUSTACEA: STOMATOPODA) OFF THE SUFFOLK COAST J. R. ELLIS, K. WARR, K. COOPER AND I. J. DE BOOIS Little is known about the distribution of mantis shrimps (Order Stomatopoda) in European seas, as these burrowing crustaceans are poorly sampled in trawl surveys. Two species are known to occur in British seas, Rissoides desmaresti (Risso, 1816) (formerly Meiosquilla desmaresti; see Manning & Lewinsohn (1982)) and Platysquilla eusebia (Risso, 1816) (Mauchline, 1984), though more species occur further south (Manning, 1977).

Rissoides desmaresti (Fig. 1) is most often reported from the Mediterranean, where it is common in the western basins (Manning, 1977) and reported occasionally in eastern basins, such as the Aegean Sea (e.g. Kocataú, 1981). Its distribution extends northwards to the southern and western coasts of the British Isles, and it has been recorded regularly from the English Channel (Bell, 1853; Clark, 1985; Herbert, 2001), and Ramsay and Holt (2001) recently recorded a population in Tremadog Bay (North Wales). Within the North Sea (Fig. 2), single specimens of adult R. desmaresti have been recorded near the Kentish Knock lightship (51º39’N, 1º41’E) in April 1901 (Bell, 1902) and further north (53º42’N, 3º52’E) in January 1963 (van der Baan & Holthuis, 1966). The latter study also made reference to “not quite adult specimens” being recorded at the Brown Bank (either 52º44’N, 3º39’E or 52º41’N, 3º40’E) in September 1904.

Even though there have been very few reports of adult stomatopods in the North Sea, their larval stages are more regularly reported (van der Baan & Holthuis, 1966, 1969; Verwey, 1966). Based on the duration of the larval stages and currents in the southern North Sea, Verwey (1966) suggested that it was likely that these larvae had originated not only from the English Channel, but also from the southern North Sea itself. Despite the indication that there is

Figure 1. Mantis shrimp Rissoides desmaresti. Scale in centimetres.

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44 54.0

53.5

53.0

52.5

52.0

51.5

51.0 0

1

2

3

4

5

Figure 1. Map of southern North Sea showing earlier catches of adult mantis shrimp (ĂŒ), location of current specimens (|), and recent records of mantis shrimp larvae from the Continuous Plankton Recorder (Ÿ). a breeding population of mantis shrimp in the southern North Sea, there are no recent published records of adult mantis shrimp in this area. Furthermore, they are not listed in the marine fauna of Suffolk (Anon, 1934) or Norfolk (Hamond, 1971).

Occasional specimens of R. desmaresti were observed in Hamon grab and beam trawl catches during studies of gravel extraction sites and surrounding areas east of Felixstowe, and individual specimens were recorded in the Dutch Beam Trawl Survey of the southern North Sea in 2003 and 2004 (Table 1). In April 2006, a survey of gravel habitats east of Felixstowe yielded several specimens in both 2-m beam trawl and 4-m beam trawl samples (Table 1). No mantis shrimps were observed in the catches of Agassiz trawl taken on the same grounds during this survey, possibly as this gear does not dig into the sediment as much as beam trawls. There are also some more recent records of stomatopod larvae in the southern North Sea from the Continuous Plankton

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45 MANTIS SHRIMPS OFF THE SUFFOLK COAST

Cirolana 5/01 57

79

Stn

19/8/ 2003 24/8/ 2004

28/7/ 2002

24/7/ 2001

Date

52º 21.54’ 51º 50.08’

52º 1.50'

52º 0.50'

Latitude

2º 15.34’E 2º 02.58’E

1º 55.82'E

1º 55.21'E

Longitude

52 33

26

30

Depth

Hamon grab Hamon grab Beam trawl Beam trawl 2-m beam trawl 2-m beam trawl 2-m beam trawl 4-m beam trawl 4-m beam trawl 4-m beam trawl 4-m beam trawl 4-m beam trawl 2-m beam trawl 2-m beam trawl 2-m beam trawl 2-m beam trawl 2-m beam trawl

8-m beam trawl 8-m beam trawl

Hamon grab

Hamon grab

Gear

1 1 1 2 1 2 1 4 4 1 2 1 1 1 3 1 1

1 1

1

1

No. of specimens

Table 1. Recent records of adult mantis shrimp in the southern North Sea.

Cirolana 4/02 -

33 33 32 32 26 31 28 31 40 38 39 37 37 CEFAS Endeavour 10A/06

Corystes 11/04

Dutch Beam Trawl Survey 15/8/ 2004

1º 50.70’E 1º 54.42’E 1º 54.84’E 1º 54.78’E 1º 54.79’E 1º 54.78’E 1º 54.80’E 1º 54.60’E 1º 55.45’E 1º 54.17’E 1º 55.45’E 1º 54.54’E 1º 55.19’E 1º 55.19’E 1º 55.15’E 1º 55.12’E 1º 55.21’E 22/4//2006

21/4/ 2006

52º 7.29’ 52º 1.73’ 52º 1.48’ 52º 1.47’ 52º 1.57’ 52º 1.57’ 52º 1.54’ 52º 1.17’ 52º 2.86’ 52º 0.83’ 52º 2.86’ 52º 0.87’ 52º 2.19’ 52º 2.18’ 52º 2.20’ 52º 2.03’ 52º 2.70’

51 54 159 161 7 9 11 17 18 19 20 21 28 30 33 44 46

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Recorder (CPR), including some in close proximity to the location of the observed adults (Fig. 2). This may indicate that a breeding population of R. desmaresti, as suggested to occur in the southern North Sea by Verwey (1966), may occur off the coast of East Anglia.

Rissoides desmaresti has been recorded in several shallow-water habitats, including muddy bottoms with sea grass (e.g. Zostera and Posidonia), sandy and muddy-sandy bottoms with bryozoans (e.g. Cellaria), and sediments containing a mixture of mud, sand and gravel (Kocataú, 1981; Clark, 1985; Ramsay & Holt, 2001). Its bathymetric range extends to about 80 m (Kocataú, 1981), though in British waters it tends to be recorded in waters of less than 40 m. The present specimens were all found in waters of 26–40 m depth, with the Dutch beam trawl survey recording a specimen from 52 m deep, and the sediments were comprised of a muddy-gravel with some pebbles.

Acknowledgements We thank Alistair Lindley (Sir Alistair Hardy Foundation for Ocean Sciences, Plymouth) for providing CPR records of larval stomatopods in the southern North Sea, and the scientists and crews of the various surveys for their assistance at sea. Data from 2006 were collected whilst conducting field investigations for the Defra-funded project AE1148. The project has been carried out in the framework of the MarBEF Network of Excellence ‘Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning’ which is funded by the Sustainable Development, Global Change and Ecosystems Programme of the European Community’s Sixth Framework Programme (contract no. GOCE-CT-2003505446). This publication is contribution number MPS-06047 of MarBEF. References Anon (1934). The Crustacea of Suffolk: Part I; Crabs, lobsters and shrimps.

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Baan, S. M. van der & Holthuis, L. B. (1966). On the occurrence of Stomatopoda in the North Sea, with special reference to larvae from the surface plankton near the lightship “Texel”. Netherlands Journal of Sea Research 3: 1–12.

Baan, S. M. van der & Holthuis, L. B. (1969). Second note on the occurrence of stomatopod larvae in the North Sea near the lightship “Texel”.

Netherlands Journal of Sea Research 4: 350–353.

Bell, F. J. (1902). On the occurrence of Squilla desmaresti in the North Sea. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 6: 387–388.

Bell, T. (1853). A history of the British stalk-eyed Crustacea. John van Voorst, London, 386pp.

Clark, P. F. (1985). The occurrence of Meiosquilla desmaresti (Risso, 1816) (Crustacea: Stomatopoda) in the North-east Atlantic. Porcupine Newsletter 3: 90–93.

Hamond, R. (1971). The leptostracan, euphausiid, stomatopod and decapod crustacea of Norfolk. Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society 22: 90–112.

Herbert, R. J. H. (2001). The occurrence of the mantis shrimp Rissoides desmaresti (Risso, 1816) from the Solent. Porcupine Newsletter 9: 12–15.

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Kocataú, A. (1981). Two new stomatopod species for the Turkish fauna: Nannosquilloides occultus (Giesbrecht) and Meiosquilla desmaresti (Risso). Crustaceana 40: 213–215.

Manning, R. B. (1977). A monograph of the West African Stomatopod Crustacea. Atlantide Report 12: 25–181.

Manning, R. B. & Lewinsohn, C. (1982). Rissoides, a new genus of stomatopod crustacean from the east Atlantic and South Africa.

Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 95: 352–353.

Mauchline, J. (1984). Euphausiid, stomatopod and leptostracan crustaceans.

Synopses of the British Fauna (New Series) 30. E. J. Brill & W. Backhuys, London, 91 pp.

Ramsay, K. & Holt, R. H. F. (2001). Mantis shrimps Rissoides desmaresti in Tremadog Bay, North Wales. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 81: 695–696.

Verwey, J. (1966). The origin of Stomatopoda larvae of the North Sea. Netherlands Journal of Sea Research 3: 13–20.

Jim Ellis and Karema Warr Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) Pakefield Road Lowestoft Suffolk NR33 0HT Keith Cooper Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) Remembrance Avenue Burnham on Crouch Essex CM0 8HA Ingeborg de Boois Institute for Marine Research and Ecosystem Studies (IMARES) Postbus 68 1970 AB Ijmuiden The Netherlands

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