Open AccessSelective Breeding of the Fresh and Brackish‐Water Shrimp Macrobrachium Acanthurus
Author(s) -
Dobkin Sheldon,
Montfrans Jack,
Holland Denise H.
Publication year - 1975
Publication title -
proceedings of the annual meeting ‐ world mariculture society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1749-7345
pISSN - 0164-0399
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-7345.1975.tb00004.x
Subject(s) - biology , juvenile , sex ratio , zoology , shrimp , brackish water , population , palaemonidae , fishery , ecology , decapoda , crustacean , demography , salinity , sociology
A second year of work on the selective breeding of Macrobrachium acanthurus resulted in the rearing of the F 2 and F 3 generations to maturity, and the F 4 generation to the juvenile stage. A comparison of the growth of the F 1 and F 3 generations reared during roughly comparable periods in successive years shows that 129 F 1 generation animals with an average age of 188 days had a mean size of 8.6 cm and 127 F 3 generation animals with an average age of 177 days had a mean size of 9.4 cm. This increase in size is attributable partly to an increase in the percentage of males in the pond population, from 25% for the F 1 generation to 65% for the F 3 generation, and partly to the greater growth of F 3 females. The radical change in the sex ratio was brought about by selecting the largest postlarval animals for our primary pond rearing experiment. The remaining postlarvae, selected from the same broods, were reared separately and at an average age of 178 days showed a sex ratio of 18% male and 82% female.