When I first arrived in Bermuda I was interested to see some of the native crab species so I could compare them to the Asian Shore Crab found in New England.  After investigating around the rocky intertidal, Dr. Robertson discovered what looked like the Asian Shore Crab.  This both excited me and saddened me.  It would be exciting to see if they were indeed invading Bermuda (because they had been rumored to) but if they had invaded they could have devastating effects on the marine ecology of Bermuda.  However, it was found that the crab species was instead the native Mottled Shore Crab (Pachygrapsus transversus).  Once I found that this species inhabits the rock crevices of the mid to high intertidal I was interested in their distribution patterns.

Purpose: To see if there are any patterns of distribution of P. transversus in relation to hole sizes and volumes.  Also to see what the percent coverage is of this species.

Methods: To see what the distribution of this species is I picked random areas of rock that contained a number of rocky crevices.  Due to the morphology of the Bermuda rock, there are many holes and hiding places for the crabs to hide making it fairly easy to find a suitable area to research.  Using a small quadrat I examined each hole and took measurements of the average width and the depth using a set of digital calipers.  I then looked inside the hole to check for inhabitation and squirted water inside which usually drew the crabs out to the entrance of the hole.  If they came out far enough I could tell what color morph they were, but that could not be determined for every crab.

	Quadrat placed on the rock surface.  Each hole seen was measured for width, depth, and crab presence.  In addition, any other characteristics of the crevice were observed including other inhabitants of the hole (primarily mussels and snails), secondary exits, and indication of previous crab inhabitation (crab feces).
	The quadrats were placed randomly on rock faces wherever I could find stable footing in the shallow water.  Finding footing was sometimes rather difficult which limited some study areas.

Results