''Neohelice granulata'' is a species of
crab in the family
Varunidae
The Varunidae are a family of thoracotrematan crabs. The delimitation of this family, part of the taxonomically confusing Grapsoidea, is undergoing revision. For a long time, they were placed at the rank of subfamily in the Grapsidae, but they a ...
, and the only species in the genus ''Neohelice''.
In 2009, it was estimated that ''N. granulata'' was the sixth most studied species of crab.
Distribution and ecology
''Neohelice'' is found in the south-western
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
, from the
Laguna Araruama in
Rio de Janeiro state
Rio de Janeiro () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil. It has the second largest economy of Brazil, with the largest being that of the state of São Paulo. The state, which has 8.2% of the Brazilian population, is responsible for 9.2% of ...
,
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
to the
Golfo San José (on the north side of the
Valdes Peninsula
The Valdes Peninsula (Spanish: ''Península Valdés'') is a peninsula into the Atlantic Ocean in the Biedma Department of north-east Chubut Province, Argentina. Around in size (not taking into account the isthmus of Carlos Ameghino which connects ...
in
Patagonia
Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...
,
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
).
The diet of ''Neohelice'' in the wild most consists of sediment, ''
Spartina
''Spartina'' is a taxon of plants in the grass family, frequently found in coastal salt marshes. Its species are commonly known as cordgrass or cord-grass, and are native to the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean in western and southern Europe, nort ...
'' and plant-derived
detritus.
Taxonomic history
The first report of ''Neohelice'' was probably that made by
Alcide d’Orbigny
Alcide Charles Victor Marie Dessalines d'Orbigny (6 September 1802 – 30 June 1857) was a French naturalist who made major contributions in many areas, including zoology (including malacology), palaeontology, geology, archaeology and anthropol ...
during an expedition to South America between 1826 and 1834. He included details of the crab's ecology, including their burrows, but did not name the species. The first person to
describe the species taxonomically was
James Dwight Dana
James Dwight Dana FRS FRSE (February 12, 1813 – April 14, 1895) was an American geologist, mineralogist, volcanologist, and zoologist. He made pioneering studies of mountain-building, volcanic activity, and the origin and structure of continent ...
, who named it ''Chasmagnathus granulatus'' in his 1851 work reporting the results of the
United States Exploring Expedition
The United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842 was an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands conducted by the United States. The original appointed commanding officer was Commodore Thomas ap Catesby ...
(also known as the "Wilkes expedition").
In 1918,
Mary J. Rathbun redescribed the species under the modified name "''Chasmagnathus granulata''", which remained in occasional use along Dana's name until 2006, when Katushi Sakai, Michael Türkay and Si-Liang Yang revised the genera ''
Helice'' and ''
Chasmagnathus''. They restricted both genera to those species occurring in
East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...
, and erected a new genus for ''C. granulatus'', which thus became ''Neohelice granulata'', as well as the genera ''
Austrohelice'' and ''
Pseudohelice''.
Importance
''Neohelice granulata'' has emerged since the 1980s as a
model species in a variety of biological fields. Much of the
scientific research
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific m ...
has focused on the species' tolerance of both fresh water and brine (euryhalinity) and its semiterrestrial habit.
It has also been investigated for research into
neurophysiology
Neurophysiology is a branch of physiology and neuroscience that studies nervous system function rather than nervous system architecture. This area aids in the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological diseases. Historically, it has been dominated b ...
,
neurobiology of learning and memory
''Neurobiology of Learning and Memory'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering neuroscience as it pertains to the processes of learning and memory. It was established in 1968 as ''Communications in Behavioral Biology Part A''. I ...
,
[Lessons from a crab: molecular mechanisms in different memory phases of Chasmagnathus. Romano A, Locatelli F, Freudenthal R, Merlo E, Feld M, Ariel P, Lemos D, Federman N, Fustiñana MS. Biol Bull. 2006 Jun;210(3):280-8. doi: 10.2307/4134564.] toxicology
Toxicology is a scientific discipline, overlapping with biology, chemistry, pharmacology, and medicine, that involves the study of the adverse effects of chemical substances on living organisms and the practice of diagnosing and treating e ...
and
ecosystem dynamics. Such breadth of study is unusual for a model organism.
In 2009, Eduardo Spivak tallied the number of
scientific paper
: ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.''
Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scienti ...
s published about different crab species over the previous 23 years, and found that ''Neohelice granulata'' was the sixth most studied crab species, after ''
Carcinus maenas
''Carcinus maenas'' is a common littoral crab. It is known by different names around the world. In the British Isles, it is generally referred to as the shore crab, or green shore crab. In North America and South Africa, it bears the name europ ...
'', ''
Callinectes sapidus
''Callinectes sapidus'' (from the Ancient Greek ,"beautiful" + , "swimmer", and Latin , "savory"), the blue crab, Atlantic blue crab, or regionally as the Chesapeake blue crab, is a species of crab native to the waters of the western Atlantic ...
'', ''Scylla serrata'', ''Cancer pagurus'' and ''Metacarcinus magister'', but ahead of the invasive and edible Chinese mitten crab (''Eriocheir sinensis'') and the commercially important "snow crab", ''Chionoecetes opilio''.
References
Further reading
*
{{Taxonbar, from=Q6992956
Grapsoidea
Monotypic arthropod genera