We collected crabs from Hannafore Point, Cornwall,U.K., during a
single sampling trip in February 2011 and transported them directly
to the laboratory, where they were initially held in a single holding
tank containing 125 litres of continuously filtered and aerated sea
water at 15 C. There,weremoved them from their shells bycracking
the shell in a vice. Only male crabs with no damaged appendages and
that were free from obvious parasites were used. Crab mass ranged