Respiration, Excretion and Oxygen: Nitrogen Ratio of the Phyllosomes of the Red Spiny Lobster Panulirus interruptus

Abstract

The culture of the lobster Panulirus interruptus is limited due to the lack of knowledge that allow the completion of all larval stages. This work presents data on daytime and nightime oxygen consumption and ammonia excretion in phyllosoma I and II of the red lobster Panulirus interruptus reared in the lab at 21 °C and feeding with enriched Artemia nauplii. During starvation, the oxygen consumption by larvae phyllosoma dropped from 5.29 in the first hour to 3.54 mg O2 g-1h-1 after 14 h. The postabsorptive state was achieved after 13.5 h of starvation. This observation was taken into account to use starved larvae in our study. Oxygen consumption in the daytime was significantly higher than in the nightime in both larval stages. The levels of oxygen consumption (mg O2 g-1h-1) during daytime and nightime were: 4.28 and 3.66 in phyllosoma I and; 3.8 and 3.17 in phyllosoma II, respectively. There were no significant daytime/nightime differences of ammonia excretion: phyllosoma I excreted 0.011 to 0.095 mg NH4 g-1h-1; phyllosoma II excreted 0 to 0.65 mg NH4 g-1h-1. Oxygen consumption and ammonia excretion were significantly higher in phyllosoma I than in phyllosoma II. There were no significant differences between daytime and nightime The Oxygen-Nitrogen ratios of 59.1 to 422.4 obtained in both stages suggest a catabolism ranging from utilization of equal values of proteins and lipids to utilization of lipids and carbohydrates.