Response to temperature and salinity of different larval types in the invasive shrimp, Palaemon macrodactylus

MARÍA GUADALUPE VÁZQUEZ; CLAUDIA CRISTINA BAS; EDUARDO DANIEL SPIVAK

Mar del Plata

Congreso; CERF 2012; 2012

Coastal and estuarine research Federation

The invasive shrimp Palaemon macrodactylus has invaded successfully in the last decades Australia, USA and a large part of Europe, mostly in estuarine environments. Recently, it was registered at Mar del Plata harbor, where it has developed a stable population in a fully marine environment. Some differences in P. macrodactylus females of this last population, from to the beginning (B), middle (M) and end (E) of the reproductive season were detected, regarding, among other traits, to the composition of early eggs and larvae, which conformed different reproductive strategies. Therefore, differences in characteristics and performance of larvae coming from those groups are expected. This work, evaluated and compared the ability of P. macrodactylus larvae coming from different females type (B, M and E) to survive and develop in different combination of four salinites (5, 12, 23 and 34 psu) and two temperatures (20 and 25ºC). Larvae from each period were able to survive and reached the juvenile stage only at salinities between 12 and 34 psu at both temperatures, in different proportion depending on the salinity-temperature combination. Time to complete larval development differed between temperatures, among salinities and larval groups The time necessary to complete larval development was shorter in the highest temperature but, since development of B larvae was the fastest at 20ºC, the shorten was only 18.9% compared to near 41.96% in the other groups. Despite the presence of adults and postlarvae of the shrimp has been reported in very low salinities, in this work, larval development was possible in 12 psu salinity or higher, this suggest that even when different larvae show different abilities to face the conditions prevailing at hatching, the species would no be able to complete their life cycle at salinities below 12 psu as was proposed for other populations in estuarine environments.