A Brief Review on: Architecture, Characteristics and Types of Burrows in Crabs

Behavioural ecology is the branch of science that studies the ecological and evolutionary aspects of a species or a collection of species with that of its/their immediate environment. It deals with analyses of relationships between an organism's behaviour and the environment wherein the said behaviour has evolved or is expressed.  One of the greatest geneticists Theodosius Dobzhansky (1964) famously wrote, “ Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of evolution ”. The pattern of behaviour helps an animal to adapt to its environment, both intrinsic and extrinsic, efficiently. In modern behavioural ecology a variety of tools and approaches are used - from demographics to molecular phylogenetics. The arthropods are often used as models for studying the behavioral patterns, both in the solitary and social conditions. Ecological and spatial distributions of the arthropods allow them to maintain favorable body temperature within the burrows and also during several key developmental stages, affecting size and development rate. The options offered by modern telemetry technology can also be used by physiological and behavioural ecologists. When direct observation is impossible, telemetry can be used to acquire a wide spectrum of environmental, physiological and behavioural data. The relationships between behaviour and other factors, such as gender, species and size also draw observations and focus on the classical theories of behavioural ecology. Decapod crustaceans have complex life histories and behavioural aspects, such as foraging, mating and reproduction, moulting and growth, habitat selection and migration. New technologies have enabled to use an individual, field-based approach to analyze these problems, although they have been less developed in decapods than in vertebrates. In decapods applications of telemetry to analyze habitat selection, foraging behaviour, energetics, moulting site selection and migrations are also used to study the behavioural aspects. Thus the behavioural study is the dynamic system of intermittent locomotion by which the animals adjust themselves with the change in the circumstances of the surroundings. Movement of an organism is an important cue forstimulus detection; pauses can also reduce unwanted detectionby an organism's predators or prey. Most of the ecological studies have focused completely on the behavioural interaction of the crab with the surroundings. Relatively little work has been done on the behavioural ecology of the Indian freshwater crab associated with the behaviour and population related processes. The analysis of the spatial distribution of burrows of the crab in the field can suggest uniform, clustered or random orientation in the population dynamics.