TY - JOUR T1 - Host use patterns and demography in a guild of tropical sponge-dwelling shrimps JF - Marine Ecology-Progress Series Y1 - 1992 A1 - Duffy, J. E. SP - 127 EP - 138 KW - Agelas clathrodes (Porifera) KW - Animalia KW - animals KW - Arthropoda KW - Arthropods KW - Comparative and Experimental Morphology KW - Crustaceans KW - Ecology KW - Ecology (Environmental Sciences) KW - Environmental Biology/Animal [07508] KW - Environmental Biology/Oceanography [07512] KW - Environmental Sciences) KW - Evolution [01500] KW - Evolution and Adaptation KW - Genetics KW - Genetics and Cytogenetics/Animal [03506] KW - Genetics and Cytogenetics/Population Genetics (1972- ) [03509] KW - Invertebrata KW - Invertebrates KW - Malacostraca: Crustacea KW - Marine Ecology (Ecology KW - Neotropical region) KW - Panama (Central America KW - Physiology KW - Physiology and Pathology/Arthropoda-Crustacea [64054] KW - Physiology and Pathology/Porifera [64006] KW - Population Genetics (Population Studies) KW - Porifera [39000] KW - Porifera: Invertebrata KW - Spheciospongia vesparium (Organisms - Unspecified) KW - sponge (Porifera) KW - Synalpheus brooksi (Malacostraca) KW - Synalpheus spp. (Malacostraca) AB - Demographic consequences of the commensal lifestyle of shrimps Synalpheus spp. were assessed by sampling sponges and coral rubble on reefs in Caribbean Panama. Eight of 22 species were found solely or primarily within the internal canals of sponges. Among these sponge-dwellers, host specificity ranged from generation (occurrence in gtoreq 4 host species) to specialization on a single host species, and sponges used in the field were also preferreed in laboratory choice assays. Living in sponges had important consequences for shrimp populations. Parasitism by epicaridean isopods averaged 6 times higher in obligate sponge-dwellers (17%) than in free-living species (2.5%). Sponge species differed in the mean size and size range of habitable spaces they provide, number of potentially competing Synalpheus species they support, and vulnerability of associated shrimps to parasitism. Similarly, conspecific shrimp populations occupying different hosts differed demographically. Specifically, populations and Synalpheus brooksi in the sponge Spheciospongia vesparium were significantly less dense, less parasitized, had larger body sizes, and tended toward higher proportions of mature females than conspecifics in the co-occurring sponge Agelas clathrodes. High host specificity, regional variation in host use, and demographic and genetic differentiation among conspecific shrimps in different host species suggest that the commensal lifestyle has pervasive, and potentially evolutionarily important, consequences for the population biology of this diverse group of shrimps. VL - 90 N1 - USA1992English ER -