Biol. Bull. Sign up for etocs!
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Ra'anan, Z.
Right arrow Articles by Kuris, A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Ra'anan, Z.
Right arrow Articles by Kuris, A.

The Biological Bulletin, Vol 181, Issue 3 379-386, Copyright © 1991 by Marine Biological Laboratory

ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION

Growth, Size Rank, and Maturation of the Freshwater Prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii: Analysis of Marked Prawns in an Experimental Population

Z. Ra'anan, A. Sagi, Y. Wax, I. Karplus, G. Hulata and A. Kuris
Aquaculture Production Technology, P. O. Box 4330, Jerusalem, Israel 91042

For four months we marked and followed through female maturation and adult male mophotypic differentiation, the growth of all 150 individuals in an experimental population of Malaysian giant freshwater prawns (Macrobrachium rosenbergii). Small immature female prawns had high growth rates. Growth of female prawns nearly ceased after maturation. This compensatory growth process produces adult females having a unimodal, symmetrical size distribution with a mean above the size threshold for maturation (about 18-26 g). The small male morphotype has a low growth rate, while the orange claw male morphotype has a high growth rate. As the orange claw males transform to the blue claw morphotype, growth ceases. Examination of changes in size rank during the maturation process supported the leapfrog phenomenon. The fastest growing, largest orange claw male is the first to metamorphose to the blue claw morphotype (at a size of 35 g). As other orange claw males exceed this size, they transform in a sequential process so that the most recent blue claw male is generally the largest blue claw male in the population. Thus, growth of males is depensatory throughout the process of morphotypic differentiation, leading to a wide size range of orange and blue claw males. The leapfrog phenomenon is discussed in terms of the reproductive success of the blue claw males and compared with related growth processes in male poeciliid fishes. Implications of this growth process for aquacultural productivity includes the stimulatory effect on the remaining prawns of selectively harvesting the largest blue claw and orange claw prawns and suggests that the inclusion of a small proportion of large "target" blue claw males might stimulate the rapid growth of orange claw males in a population of smaller prawns.




HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright © 1991 by the Marine Biological Laboratory.