Borers and encrusters as indicators of the presence of hermit crabs in Antarctic Eocene gastropods shells

CASADÍO, S.; PARRAS, A.; GRIFFIN, M.; MARENSSI, S.

ANTARCTIC SCIENCE

CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2007 vol. 19 p. 297 - 309

0954-1020

The community of encrusting and boring organisms developed on shells of the gastropod Antarctodarwinella ellioti from the lower section of the La Meseta Formation(Eocene) exposed on Seymour (Marambio) Island, Antarctic Peninsula, allows inference that the shells were inhabited by hermit crabs. A Chi-square Independence Test revealed that the community - dominated by polychaetes and bryozoans - shows preference for the aperture interior area of the shell. A subsequent Cochran Q Test indicated that the differences in frequency of encrusting and boring organisms as counted on the different interior sectors of the aperture were statistically significant. Thus, polychaetes, boring bryozoans, and encrusting bryozoans, do not show the same frequency in each interior sector of the aperture; they are more frequent on the columella (P