Beadlet anemones, Actinia equina, so named for their necklace of neon blue ‘beads’ use these to fight and Dr Sarah Lane, a behavioural ecologist with an interest in fighting behaviours, has been studying them – first carefully removing them from the rocks and then putting them in tanks and filming fights between anemones carefully matched in size and put in the same tank so they are touching – to find the answers to six questions: What are the costs of fighting?…Do relatives fight?…Is aggression inherited?…How do injuries affect individuals?…Why do individuals decide to give up?…What determines the length of the fight? Having studied anemones Dr Lane is now going to study the fighting behaviours of hermit crabs…a future talk perhaps…
It’s Underwater Warfare Out There…..