Assessment of potential trade‐off between maternal colouration and offspring quality in the ornamental ?red cherry? shrimp Neocaridina davidi (Bouvier)

SGANGA DE; LOPEZ, LAURA SUSANA

AQUACULTURE RESEARCH

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2019

1355-557X

Maternal colouration based on carotenoids has been proposed to negatively affectoffspring quality in several taxa, since females might trade off their limited carote‐noid resources between body colouration and eggs. This study investigated in theornamental ?red cherry? shrimp (Neocaridina davidi) the relationship between mater‐nal colouration and female reproductive performance, as well as offspring quality.Females selected displayed a broad array of body colour, from less coloured to in‐tensely red coloured and were paired with transparent males. The first two spawningevents of each female were studied and compared. The number of newly hatchedjuveniles was associated to maternal weight, but not to maternal colouration.Offspring quality was measured in terms of survival at the end of the 90‐day growthperiod, weight and length increment for 0?30 days and 30?60 days periods, and pro‐tein, lipid and glycogen contents in 30‐day‐old offspring. Yet, neither of these varia‐bles was associated to maternal colouration. These results indicate that there is notrade‐off between maternal colouration and offspring quality in this species.Furthermore, no association was found between maternal and offspring colouration,evaluated at a similar age. However, body colouration in 180‐day old females wassignificantly higher than in 90‐day‐old females, indicating that female colouration isstrongly influenced by age.KEYWORDSfirst spawnings, maternal colouration, offspring quality, reproductive performance, secondspawnings