There are some teeny-tiny infant lobsters, called Spiny-lobster (Panulirus argus), which are small, but however their commercial value is anything but teeny-tiny.
These infant lobsters rake in a giant annual profit for the Caribbean worth $1 billion a year. This exorbitant value has prompted researchers to probe into the lifecycle of these lobster babies.
The study published in the journal PLOS ONE, reveals how lobster larvae travel in their first five months to a year of life, before they mature into adults. The researchers were Ph.D. candidate Andrew Kough and Dr. Claire Paris of the Biophysical Interactions Lab at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science, in collaboration with Dr. Mark Butler from Old Dominion University, studied the larval dispersal of this species in the Caribbean.
The study reveals that the Caribbean current, once thought to be a spiny-lobster superhighway, is actually a problem for little lobsters and has been dubbed the "Highway to Hell." The larvae that ultimately settle in the simulation spend little time within these strong currents. By moving to deeper depths as they age, spiny lobster larvae seem to increase their odds of settlement.
If the larvae spend lots of time among the sea's strong currents, they're likely to be "flushed out of the system," study researcher Mark Butler, of Old Dominion University in Virginia, said in a statement.
"Despite some expected degree of ocean mixing in the region, we found relatively high levels of larvae settling back to their place of origin," Butler said. "This was surprising for larvae that spend up to 12 months traveling."
"Spiny lobster have extraordinary larvae with a prolonged planktonic existence that can last from five months to nearly a year, which confer them with high dispersal potential and complex pelagic pathways. Despite such challenges in documenting their pathways in the open ocean, just like hurricane models that help to reduce the 'cone of uncertainty', in this case we are improving settlement predictions by simulating large numbers of spawning events and tracking virtual larvae undergoing deep vertical migrations," says Paris.
