Nichola Fletcher

University of Hull · Centre for Environmental and Marine Sciences

The importance of infaunal bioturbators for the functioning of marine ecosystems cannot be overstated. Inhabitants of estuarine and coastal habitats are expected to show resilience to fluctuations in seawater temperature and pH, which adds complexity to our understanding of the effects of global change drivers. Further, stress responses may be prop...

Chemosensory science, the study of how organisms produce and assess olfactory information, is central to our understanding of how organisms interact and gain information about their environment. Signaling cue identification in aquatic systems lags behind our knowledge in terrestrial insects due to analytical challenges in aqueous environments. Unam...

Nereis diversicolor is a widely distributed bioturbating ragworm that inhabits the coastal and estuarine regions of Northwestern Europe and is prey to numerous fish and crustacean species. In order for survival, this like many other invertebrate species, needs to develop strategies to detect and/or escape the numerous predators. The worms utilise c...

Arguably climate change is one of the biggest challenges faced by many organisms. One of the more significant of these is the decreasing pH level of the ocean, a consequence of the increasing amount of atmospheric CO 2 being absorbed. With the current open ocean pH level of 8.15 projected to fall to just over 7.6 in 2100, the impacts could be devas...

The reproduction of many brachyuran crustaceans involves the formation of mating pairs often around the time of the female moult with attraction of a sexual partner and mating behaviour controlled by sex pheromones. In shore crabs, Carcinus maenas , females produce sex pheromones that are released in the urine. High Performance Liquid Chromatograph...

Increasing atmospheric CO2 levels are largely absorbed by the ocean, decreasing surface water pH. In combination with increasing ocean temperatures, these changes have been identified as a major sustainability threat to future marine life. Interactions between marine organisms are known to depend on biomolecules, although the influence of oceanic p...

Increasing atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are largely absorbed by the world's oceans, decreasing surface water pH. In combination with increasing ocean temperatures, these changes have been identified as a major sustainability threat to future marine life. Interactions between marine organisms are known to depend on biomolecules, but the infl...

Despite major progress in our understanding of animal signaling systems, the identification of chemical signals in aquatic organisms is still in its infancy. Exemplary for this is the lack of structural knowledge of crustacean sex pheromones despite their initial description in crabs almost 40 yr ago. We hypothesized that species in which the repro...

Mate choice and mating preferences often rely on the information content of signals exchanged between potential partners. In species where a female's reproduction is the terminal event in life it is to be expected that females choose high quality males and assess males using some honest indicator of male quality. The Nereidid polychaete, Neanthes a...

The determination of an individual's behaviour often relies upon complex signals that convey messages about the environment it inhabits. In aquatic environments such signals take varied and conflicting forms including chemical cues indicating food or potential mates being opposed by the presence of competitor or predator odour. Despite ever increas...

The recent identification of uridine diphosphate (UDP) as the female sex-pheromone in the European shore crab Carcinus maenas demonstrated not only the link between moult and pheromone production, but also how it may have evolved from a `simple' metabolic byproduct. Consequently, it is expected to be present in other moulting crustaceans, thus rais...