About — The Crab Lab

ABOUT THE LAB

Core crustacean science

Wherever the tide takes us

The sea is one of the noisiest environments on the planet.

We study how animals make sense of it.

The Crab Lab is a virtual research centre — an independent eLab — built around a single driving question: how do animals gather, filter, and act on information in complex, noisy environments?

We use crustaceans as our primary model organisms, and rocky shores and nearshore habitats as our ‘studio’. The work moves between field and laboratory, between observation and experiment, between natural and human-caused sources of noise.

This isn't a single room in a university building.

It's a research identity

and it travels.

Life on the shore is an information problem.

We study the solutions

Research without walls

WHAT IS AN eLAB?

Traditional research labs are tied to a place — a building, an institution, a postcode. The Crab Lab works differently. It is a portable, independent research centre that exists wherever our research can be done.

Currently based at the University of Plymouth, the lab has operated from other institutions and may move again. What remains constant isn't the address — it's the questions, the collaborators, the research, and the community built around this work.

The eLab model means our resources, field notes, research updates, and collaborative spaces are open and accessible regardless of where we're physically located. If you're interested in crustacean biology, marine sensory ecology, or the biology of information in noisy environments, this is your entry point — wherever you are.

The signal and the noise

THE DRIVING QUESTIONS

Every organism on a rocky shore is surrounded by information — chemical gradients, water movement, vibration, light — and by noise, both natural and human-generated. The central question running through all of our research is deceptively simple:

How do marine animals gather, filter, and act on meaningful signals in one of the most complex and noisy environments on earth — and what happens when we add to that noise?

01
Sensory Biology
How marine invertebrates perceive their environment — chemoreception, mechanosensation, and the integration of multiple sensory channels under noisy conditions.
02
Carcinology
Using crustaceans — particularly hermit crabs, porcelain crabs, and isopods — as model organisms to understand morphology, resource acquisition and use, sociality, and the effects of pollution and environmental change in complex habitats.
03
Marine Disease Ecology
Exploring how disease interacts with sensory capacity and behaviour in marine invertebrates — a growing but underexplored dimension of organismal biology.
04
Taxonomy
You cannot study what you cannot name. Accurate identification of species — particularly within the Crustacea — underpins everything else we do.
05
Rocky Shore Ecology
Population dynamics, community structure, and species interactions in intertidal and nearshore habitats — the places where the signal-to-noise question plays out most vividly.

Wherever the
tide takes us

The Crab Lab has never been about a particular building or a particular postcode. It began as a way to do serious science without the constraints of institutional geography — and it has stayed that way.

Our collaborators are spread across institutions. Our students come from wherever they find us. Our fieldwork happens wherever the questions lead — from the rocky shores of Devon and Cornwall to farther afield.

When we move institutions, the lab moves with us. The questions, the community, the accumulated work — none of that belongs to a building. It belongs to the science.

What The Crab Lab stands for

HOW WE WORK

Curiosity first
Every project in the lab starts with a genuine question — not a funding opportunity or a publishable unit. The biology drives the work, not the other way around.
Students as scientists
Undergraduate and postgraduate students don't assist with our research — they do research. Real questions, real data, real contribution. 15+ students have helped design and lead projects in the lab.
Open science
We believe science is stronger when it's shared — accessible field notes, public engagement, and a commitment to communicating our work beyond academic articles.
Rigour without rigidity
Good science demands methodological care and intellectual honesty. It doesn't demand that you stick to one place, one institution, or one way of thinking.
Nature as teacher
Fieldwork isn't just about data collection — it's where great questions come from. Time on the shore, watching animals in real habitats, is an essential component of what we do.
Collaboration over competition
The lab's network spans institutions and disciplines. We actively seek partners who share the questions, not just the methods — and we move with those partnerships intact.