Microcystin-LR (one of the toxic congeners of microcystin) exposure causes crayfish to forget previous fight outcomes as well as previous opponents, MI, 2025

Harmful algal blooms are increasing across the globe as a function of nutrient run off and climate change. While the study of the mechanisms that underlie the blooms themselves are abundant, the impact of the toxins produced by blooms needs more research. Crayfish are keystone species in aquatic habitats and rely on chemoreception for many of their ecosystem functions. Crayfish were placed in a fight arena for measure both the outcome and dynamics aspects of agonistic encounters. Then the loser of the fights were exposed to either controls or microcystin for four days. Afterwards, the crayfish fought either another unfamiliar opponent or the previous opponent. The data contained in this package has the concentrations of microcystin exposure, morphological data on the crayfish, and then behavioral data from the two different fights. The behavioral data has two categories: time spent at different levels of intensity and time it took the crayfish pair to reach a certain intensity.