The Alarm Response To The Different Chemical Cues Of Juvenile Freshwater Snail Pomacea Canaliculata

In aquatic habitats, prey use chemical cues as one of the most important information to identify the presence of predator. Avoidance responses of prey species can be costly; therefore, before responding to it, some animals assess the risk associated with an encounter with a predator to minimize energy cost and to improve the fitness. Lacking image-forming eyes or efficient vibration sensors, for golden apple snails any cues from a nearby predator must be in chemical form.In this study, we performed an experiment with golden apple snails (Pomacea canaliculate hatchlings to study their responses to the extracts of conspecific hatchlings of the same age. The responses of three-days-old snails to Chinese carp cues, to the crayfish cues, to other freshwater snail cues, and the time-dependant decaying of cuesare studied. The result is:like other freshwater snails, P. canaliculata also performed similar alarm responses; the response of different age snail is similar with the previous studies. The response of 3 days old snail to different concentration of cues showed that the relationship between the response and the cues'concentration is negatively correlated. In laboratory experiments the effects of chemical cue is negatively correlated to the time. There is no alarm response displayed when exposed to the cues from Chinese carp, crayfish and other freshwater snail cues.